On Facing New Labels

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life thinking about labels. We all have lots of labels. Among mine have been daughter, sister, wife, student, etc. And with every life change comes new labels.

For example, one of the hardest “new labels” I had ever had to adjust to was “divorcee.” A lot of you know this story, and I’ve written it in earlier blogs for those of you who care to read it. I remember the first time so many years ago when I realized I would carry the label “divorced” around with me for the rest of my life. It was like having an out of body experience. My first marriage happened when I was so young, full of ideas about how perfect the rest of my life would be, and completely naïve about the true nature of the person I was marrying. Plus, being deeply religious, divorce was never even seen as an option. So when it came to be applied to me, all I could think of what how hateful and ugly a word it was, and how much I hated it being stuck to me now.

Well…I got used to it. And since then I have even more new labels. I am a wife again, to the most amazing person I could hope to spend the rest of my life with. And very recently I have acquired the label of “pregnant.”

I was still adjusting to the “pregnant” thing. I am still adjusting to it even now, to be honest. I’m only barely almost through my first trimester.

Then the bomb dropped.

The word “cancer” was dropped.

“Cancer patient” may be the hardest label I will ever adjust to. It took me almost two days to say “I have cancer” out loud. I’ll always remember the first time I did. I was still in the hospital, and Daniel and I were alone and getting ready for bed and I just came out and said it. “I have cancer.” Sometimes I still lay awake at night with those words going through my head, trying to make them real to me.

“Pregnant cancer patient.” That’s my new label now. I’ll never again get to have just “pregnant” describe me, because from here on out with the battle raging in my body there will be no way to differentiate the two. The battle for my own life is linked to the battle for my baby’s life.

I look forward to the day that the baby and I will both get to have the label “cancer survivors.”

Setting the Record Straight

I keep hearing people talk about how brave or strong I am in this situation right now. Well today I want to set the record straight. I am neither brave nor strong. I have cancer growing in my chest and a baby growing in my belly. This situation does not leave room for much more than just blind desperation, which right now I have lots of.

Bravery or strength at a time like this isn’t something that you choose. I have not made an active choice to not melt down every time I have a spare moment to think about what I’m going through. When I was hospitalized that very first day, when I was told how big the growth was, when I was told the various things they thought it might be, I was scared. Of course I was scared. I knew that any number of the procedures they might have to do could harm my baby. I was scared for my baby.

Yet somehow, I also always felt peace. I had no idea how long I was going to be stuck in that hospital room (it almost ended up being two full weeks), and I had no idea what the outcome of the tests would be. But every night in that hospital before going to bed, Daniel and I prayed together. I didn’t pray for a specific diagnosis. I didn’t pray for anything except for my baby. I begged for the life of my child, however that had to come about.

It’s desperation. And it’s the grace of God.

Everything I went through in that hospital, the CT’s, the biopsies, the MRI, all of it was because I knew that the doctors had to know what they were dealing with to make sure the baby and I make it through this alive.

It was terrifying. I went into all of it with as good an attitude as I could, but inside I was crying with fear. There were times that I cried before the tests were administered. I screamed during the bone marrow biopsy. I cried when they tried to put a feeding tube in me and couldn’t because the mass in my throat was too big.

But during all of that, there was a song playing in my head. You see, I was in Jazz Band at MidAmerica Nazarene University. I was a singer. We did this song, which I believe was an old spiritual. I had a solo at the beginning, and the words simply went like this:

I want Jesus to walk with me.      
I want Jesus to talk with me.
All along this pilgrim journey.
Oh I want my Jesus to walk with me.

I held onto this song and those words as if I were drowning and they were my lifeline. I still play it in my head anytime I feel the panic rising in me. There is so much uncertainty and so much to worry about right now, and all I can really think to ask for right now is simply that Jesus be here through all of this, protecting both me and the baby.

I’m not brave. I’m a mom. And I’m desperate.

In Which Beth Completely Shifts Gears and Starts Chronicling her Pregnant Cancer Journey...

It’s still incredible to me, this “cancer” thing. I realize at some point most people think about the possibility of getting cancer, and most people probably do what I did and brush it off with the cliché “it can never happen to me,” or at most, think of it as the possibly the thing that will finally take them from this earth when they are older and have lived out their life already.

But this? This was never a scenario I had considered. Being diagnosed at 27 years old, barely married for over a year, and pregnant with my first child. Pregnant. I am pregnant, with cancer. For reasons I won’t go into here, I had very legitimate concerns about my ability to even get pregnant for a while. So when I found out my husband Daniel and I had conceived so quickly with so little problems, I was overjoyed. I felt like God’s hand was all over my child, my marriage, and my life. After everything I’ve been through in my life, things were going about as well as I could have ever hoped.

Then this lump, which had been in my neck for a few months by that point, started becoming an alarming problem. I had been to the doctor about it. We were looking into it. I had looked stuff up online and obviously the word “cancer” appeared because of course it did. But there were so many other, way more likely things it could be. So while the lump was feeling like it was getting bigger, and I was having more and more problems swallowing and eating in general, I only seriously gave thought to the possibility of having cancer a few times.

Then on January 26^th, after several weeks of severe morning sickness and almost being hospitalized for that a few times, I woke up with my throat hurting so badly from what I assumed was the mass that after a few hours at work I had to leave and go to the emergency room. I stopped by Daniel’s office so he could go with me, and less than two hours later I was admitted into the hospital and told that the mass was 15 centimeters long and that they were going to have to biopsy it. A week later I was diagnosed with mediastinal diffuse large b cell lymphoma.

To say I was crushed, terrified, and scared for mine and my baby’s lives wouldn’t even begin to express to you everything that went through my heart at that time. While part of me demanded to be strong because I had the baby to think of, part of me also dissolved into sheer panic because I have the baby to think of. The only thing in those first moments to keep me sane was my incredible family gathered around me and the only prayer I could come up with at the time: “God…please…”

Over the course of the rest of that week I went through even more tests to determine the stage of the cancer. More ultrasounds, an MRI, and even a bone marrow biopsy, which I can say with absolute certainty was the most terrifying and painful experience I’ve had thus far in this journey. By the grace of God, all of those tests came back clear. They did one last ultrasound on our precious baby, and my mother and husband got to see the little one move, and everything looked as good as any normal baby could.

So now I’ve been sent home to begin steroid treatments and try to boost my appetite and eating. A symptom of my type of cancer is appetite and weight loss, and adding the location of the mass by my esophagus, along with the severe morning sickness, I lost an alarming amount of weight in an incredibly short time. We’ll be starting chemo in a few weeks, and that’s going to also add to the difficulty of getting enough nutrients for the baby and I during this time.

There are also concerns about my immune system. The cancer is in my immune system, and on top of that, steroids compromise your immune system. So while I’m at home for the treatments I also have to be super careful and rethink how I live my entire life in order to avoid getting infections for mine and my baby’s sake.

So that’s the abridged summary of everything that is going on right now. My oncologist, OB, and team of doctors are working as hard as they can together to get the baby and I through this as healthily as possible. My friends and family mean everything to me right now, and Daniel and I would be lost without them. This is going to be one of the biggest challenges we may ever be faced with, but I look forward to the day we can look back on this and say it was also the thing that brought us closer together that either of us ever imagined possible.

Why Dress Codes Don't Work

I believe in absolutes.

Many people no longer believe me when I say that because I've finally vocalized how, not only am I no longer a fundamentalist, but I am also a feminist.

But I do believe in absolutes.

Unfortunately, today I will not be talking about one of those absolutes.

Today I am talking about modesty.

I don't believe there are absolutes in modesty.

The definition of modest attire changes between historic periods, cultures, and religions. In some cultures, women don't wear shirts at all, and are not considered immodest. In some cultures, women would never dream of exposing their knees in public, but bare their mid-drifts on a regular basis.

At church camps when I was a teenager, we had a strict dress code, outline by the "Eight B's." I don't remember all eight things. I know some of them were that we weren't supposed to expose the belly button (even when raising our arms), bare shoulders, bra straps, bedroom wear (i.e. pajama bottoms), and many other things.

I think strict dress codes are ridiculous and sexist. I also believe they help perpetuate victim blaming and rape culture.

You see, at these camps I have referred to, the girls were expected to cover everything up. Whilst swimming, t-shirts had to be worn by the women at all times, sometimes even if she was wearing a one piece.

Guys could wear whatever.

The biggest fear of those running the camp was that the guys (who had separate swim times) would happen to glance over at the lake and see a woman in a bathing suit. It was the girls' job to cover up to keep the men from lusting after her body at this point.

This was one of the most confusing times of my young life. I constantly was barraged with this message, the message that the female form was inherently evil. This message was of course not often delivered in so many terms, but it was there all the same. I was constantly told that my Christian brothers would lust if they saw too much of my skin.

Guys could wear whatever when they went swimming. They were never even required to wear a shirt. When this was challenged, the answer was basically that “Well, girls shouldn't be looking/lusting anyway.” At the time, it seemed pretty logical to me.

Wait, WHAT???

Girls had to cover up EVERYTHING to protect the men, but girls shouldn't look AT ALL or be moved by what they see in any way at all??

Friends, this is what I have a problem with.

There’s this undercurrent in Christian and secular culture that basically says “Boys will be boys.” They can’t help being carnally controlled, so women have to take the initiative to keep the guys from looking. If a man looks, it’s the woman’s responsibility to keep it from happening again. If he looks, it’s probably because she wasn't wearing enough clothes. If a man does more than look, then she was DEFINITELY scantily clad.

Don’t believe me? How many times have you heard “What was she wearing?” in regards to sexual assault?

Placing the burden of prevention on the woman is short-sited, one-sided, and wrong. Also, it’s unbiblical.

Oh, I know all the scriptures about modesty. I also know that many people don’t understand these scriptures very well themselves. They also cherry-pick what parts of the scripture they want to use, and what the meaning should really be. The scriptures on modesty (the one in Timothy is the one I hear used most often) tell the women not to braid their hair or wear gold jewelry, elaborate hairstyles, or gems. You see, this scripture is not telling women to cover up to keep men from sinning. The teaching here is more about not flaunting your wealth.

Jesus told men not to lust, and he did not follow this command by telling women not to show too much skin. The wording he used was a command to men to essentially not covet the woman’s body. It was the men’s responsibility to control themselves, not the women’s to control the men.

Men will lust regardless of what women are wearing. You can’t expect women to stop this. Placing dress codes on women and not trying to teach men to control themselves will not solve this.

Bombarding young girls with messages of shame about their bodies is one of the unhealthiest practices in the church today. For girls going through puberty, most already have body image issues. They are already hounded with images from the media of figures they will never measure up to. The church shouldn't be adding on to this insecurity by placing more shame.

I often worry about what I will teach my own children regarding this subject. How do you raise girls to be proud of their bodies, to wear what makes them comfortable, and to not let others shame them if guys find them attractive? I don’t think hard and fast, black and white dress codes are the answer.

How do you teach young men the difference between attraction and lust? How do you teach them to be respectful regardless of what they see in or out of the church?

I don’t have all the answers. I pray every day that rape culture will change before my future children are subjected to either side of it. This means no longer objectifying the female body and making it public property. If this makes me a feminist, so be it. I just hope it also means a better world for my future children.

Faith and Feminism

I am a Christian, but I am also a feminist. This may not seem like a big deal to some people. But where I come from, being a feminist is tantamount to being a God-hating, man-eating baby-killer. I've never understood why that is the case.

I am a feminist, but I do not automatically think that must mean I’m pro-choice, or that I can’t be a Christian anymore. I think people get confuse as to what being a “feminist” actually means, which is simply that I believe in the equality of the sexes.

I think God designed men and women as equals, and I believe that in practice as well as in theory. I've heard Christian men where I come from say on the one hand that men and women are equal, but in the same conversation ridicule a woman for being the type of woman who “don’t need no man.”

And I think to myself, wait a second…why is this a bad thing? Why should she need a man? Why does any grown person “need” someone else to take care of them? Why do we all automatically assume that single women are in need of rescuing, Christian or otherwise? What is so bad about a woman wanting to be independent, that it makes men feel threatened enough to lash out? Especially if that woman is a trusting believer in God, trusting that He will take care of her. Why should any Christian man feel threatened by that?

Recently I have started becoming more and more outspoken about feminism. I have started seeing flaws in the way that many Christians approach their treatment of women, particularly feminists, and I feel that this needs to change. Don’t get me wrong, the Church has come a long way. Many denominations now ordain women (even if sometimes the women have to fight for that ordination), and let women speak and hold office in Church.

However, many churches still see women as needing to be subservient to men. Women still receive messages that their bodies are somehow instruments used to lead men astray. The message of the submissive woman and the message of modesty have been twisted. And many women still don’t feel that they are in charge of their own body, especially in the church. I do not believe that this is what God originally intended.

The church is still falling short in its treatment of women, when it can and should be one of the main resources that women should be able to use to receive empowerment. If something as simple as a woman wanting to take care of herself is enough to offend anyone, something is terribly, terribly wrong. We as the body of God are supposed to be reaching out to the marginalized, just like Jesus did, not working hard to keep them where they are because we’re more comfortable with that.

I will be speaking more in depth on this subject in the coming weeks. Next week I will take an in-depth look at modesty, what the Bible says about it, what the church teaches today, and how our concept of it plays out in today’s culture. The Bible might say something different about it than you think it does.

Why I am No Longer Fundamental, Part 4

For my last part in this series I want to explain exactly what my beliefs are. I've been getting a lot of accusations of “Easy Christianity” and “relative truth,” etc. So since in my most recent post I laid out the basics of my observations of Fundamental Christianity, I’m going to now explain how I've learned to be a Christian without the Fundamentalism.

First, I’m going to tell you what my faith is not. This is not easy. How can it be? With the Christian circles I grew up in, and those with whom I am still in contact, many of them who are still devoutly Fundamental, what is so easy about declaring myself to not be Fundamental anymore? It never goes over very well. This is not Easy Christianity. This is also not what many of you have called “sloppy grace.”

For those of you who weren't raised with this kind of church vocabulary, let me explain what these accusations mean. “Easy Christianity” and “sloppy grace” refers to people who are Christian but who still sort of live as though they weren't. Other people see them as sinning freely without fear of consequences because they know that they will be forgiven.

This is not what I am doing, nor what I am advocating.

I have also not backslidden. I have not turned my back on God. I am not living a hedonistic life. I still have a relationship with God, and all my beliefs necessary to salvation (little Nazarene trivia for you there) are still wholly intact. In fact, my relationship with God is better now than it ever has been. I believe that this is due to the fact that I am no longer in constant fear of messing up. I am no longer obsessing about living up to everyone else’s standards, nor am I interested in keeping up appearances.

I no longer feel guilty every minute of every day for no reason at all (something I lived with for YEARS as a fundamentalist). This is the most freeing feeling I've ever had.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let me tell you how I do live out my faith these days.

Today, I leave room for more grace (and again, I don’t mean that in an “I can do whatever I want” way). What it means is that I no longer think I have all the answers. Not from the Bible, not from theology, not from anywhere. I know that there are fundamental truths in the Bible. I know that there are all sorts of things that we can’t and shouldn't compromise on. I just don’t think that that’s the whole Bible, and that there are many gray areas in there, and that we shouldn't battle to the death over those gray areas here on earth. Rather, let’s extend a little more grace to everyone on these areas. Hold to your own convictions and beliefs, but don’t guilt others into doing the same, especially not people who aren't Christian.

Speaking of which…

STOP EXPECTING NON-CHRISTIANS TO ACT LIKE CHRISTIANS

STOP HOLDING NON-CHRISTIANS TO YOUR STANDARDS

There are very few things in this life that aggravate me more than when I see Christians judging and condemning non-Christians for living and acting like non-Christians. Friends, this accomplishes little more than making Christians look hateful, and that’s not what we’re called to do. Jesus said that the world will know us by our love, right? So let’s try a little more of that. I don’t think ministry and missions ever work out very well while using that tactic.

Think rather of Paul when he was in Athens (Acts 17). The story goes that he went there and saw that the city was FULL of idols. I don’t pretend to know exactly what this means. I believe Athens was a pretty big city, so I’m guessing there were quite a few of these idols. He was upset when he saw all these idols so he of course began preaching, and soon enough he had people asking him what on earth he was talking about. However, rather than give them an itemized list of all the ways they were sinning, he complimented them on how religious they were. Then he remarked upon one idol he had seen that read “To an Unknown God.” He used that as an inroad to teaching them the good news of the gospel, and the people were hooked (obviously not all, some of them “sneered” and walked away) and asked to talk to him again.

This, I believe, is an amazing example of how to speak with non-believers. How to build relationships. You can’t build a relationship with anyone by first tearing them down, telling them everything they believe is wrong, and giving them an itemized list of why they’re going to hell. Just doesn't make for a good introduction. And I don’t believe that any ministry is effective without first having a good relationship.

Friends, Fundamentalism is fast pushing away everyone it is purporting to love and reach out to. There have been hundreds of blogs and articles written about why people are leaving the church in droves, and I believe that this is one of the main reasons why. The hatred and divisiveness that naturally comes from this kind of extreme, unyielding mentality was bound to catch up to the church eventually.

This is why I am not a Fundamentalist anymore. And this is why I feel it necessary to use my experience and do what I can to heal that divide. There is a better way.

Why I am No Longer Fundamental, Part 3

What does it even mean to be a fundamentalist? What is fundamentalism? What on Earth have I even been ranting about for the last two weeks?

These are all excellent questions, and the way I answer them will greatly alter the outcome of this little adventure I've been having.

You see, there are fundamentalist factions in every religion on earth, though sometimes they’re called by different names. You might call them extremists, like the Muslim extremists we hear about so often on the news. You might see fundamentalism in the goings-on of the folks at the Westboro Baptist Church. You might see it in polygamist colonies. Fundamentalism is seen and lived out in various societies and in different degrees all over the world.

Here though, on this blog, and in my life, I have and am addressing Christian Fundamentalism.

Webster’s defines Fundamentalism as “A movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles.” In its definition Webster’s also addresses a literal interpretation of the Bible, and how this literal interpretation is fundamental to Christian life and teaching.

But what exactly does that even mean? What does it look like? Why do I even care, beyond the effects that it has had on me?

What it means is that there’s no room to let people be people. It means there’s no way to have any dissension or differing ideas. It means that people who are fundamentalists get to sit in judgment day in and day out on people who are not, people who have different ideas, people who might view their Bibles a little bit differently.

And how do you ever even know what you truly believe if you never are allowed to question anything?

This may sound like a harsh summarization, and maybe it is.

But do you know what else is harsh? Hearing that you are rebellious simply because you have different ideas. Hearing about all the different reasons you are going to hell. Harshness is not knowing that there are other ways to be Christian that have nothing to do with interpreting your Bible literally and itemizing all they ways people who are Christian but not Fundamentalist are wrong about all their beliefs that don’t fall directly in line with what you believe.

Harshness is deciding you are Christian but not Fundamentalist, making that statement publicly, and having people try to save your soul as a result.

Fundamentalism is by its very nature one of the things Jesus fought against during his time here on earth. Maybe not everybody has read those stories the same way though. In the Bible, the fundamentalists were called Pharisees.

Pharisees got their kicks from being self-righteous and following the Jews around to make sure they were all staying in line. There were literally hundreds of rules (both from their scriptures and from their traditions) that the Jews were supposed to follow (on pain of making bloody sacrifices to save their souls), and you can bet that if some wayward Jew were to break a rule (accidentally or otherwise), there would be a Pharisee nearby to kindly tell them exactly what they did wrong and how many goats or lambs or pigeons (or whatever) would need to be killed to atone for this infraction. The Pharisees lived their lives to the letter of the literal law and expected everyone else to do the same.

They hated Jesus.

Jesus had unkind words for them.

Sound familiar?

There are lists and lists of fundamentalist beliefs that have been drawn from a literal interpretation of the Bible, and from what are believed to be orthodox. (For an awesome in-depth discussion of perceived orthodoxy, check out this blog). But the simple fact is that there are many, many ways to view the subjects that so often cause divisions amongst us, subjects that a fundamentalist teaching leaves no room for discussion on. These topics, which I will address in a later blog, include modesty, creation, homosexuality, the rapture/end times, birth control, and on and on and on.

I am not the only person who has been hurt by Fundamentalism. I believe it is at least partially responsible for the mass exodus of millennials from the church. The church, as a result of Fundamentalism, has largely come to be equated with hate, and people don’t respond well to hate. Being harsh and unyielding towards the lost and hurting hardly lends itself to the love that Jesus called us to display towards others. Love is what will bring others back to the church. Love is how I have decided to live out the rest of my Christian life. I’m not talking about compromise or easy Christianity, as some may fear, but I will get more into that next week.