A Dark Part Of My Life - Freedom to Grieve the End of Abuse

I never knew what was going to set him off. One day it might be that I stepped on the white tiles of the floor, the next it would be because I stepped on the black. Maybe dinner was not to his liking, although he had proclaimed this dish to be his favorite last week. Perhaps I failed to hang his shirts in the particular order that he had decreed proper, or I had left my room before receiving permission.

Tonight it was the evening news.

Somewhere in the broadcast, I had gone from casual viewer to responsible for a story’s content. Exactly when that occurred, I could not say. I had been too busy nursing our less than six week old baby to spare much attention to anything else around me, but his rising voice and angry pacing now commanded my full attention. We exchanged some words, words I cannot recall to this day.

There are really on three other things I remember about that night. The first is none of our neighbors were home, and I was aware of how alone I was as I faced him. The second is that when I rose to turn off the TV he pounced, wrapping his arm around my neck in a headlock – there were two distinct thoughts that filled my head, don’t drop the baby and don’t let him break your neck. I held my daughter with one arm and gripped his forearm with my other, trying to take the strain from neck as he lifted my feet from the floor and shook me like a ragdoll.

I managed to absorb the force of the fall in my shoulder and hip when he threw me away from him, and avoided crushing the baby still in my arms. He never stopped screaming his rage at the television. Blood dripped from my lips onto the pastel baby blanket, causing me to freeze but simultaneously causing my mind to race. I rose to my feet and faced him. I reached out and turned the TV off. I can still remember the coldness in my voice as I said, “If you are going to act like that you need to leave.”

It was the first time that he attacked me in such a manner. The abuse until that moment had been of other kinds. The kinds that he believed would not injure his unborn child, but now, I was fair game to his rage.

It is hard for some to understand why I can honestly say that this moment was a relief, why the tangible violence was so much easier to bear than the mental, emotional, and even the sexual attacks that had gone before. I think we both always knew it was a matter of time, and we were just waiting for him to have the guts to do what he really wanted to do to me. It was the explosion after months of watching a slow burning fuse. Finally, I could breathe again instead of holding my breath in dread.

After years of study and close to two decades of reflection, I now know why I did not call the authorities. That night I believed myself to be completely alone and I was acting on the instinct to survive. There was no room for a misstep and to stumble would cause him to pounce with renewed vengeance. A glimmer of fear would be the only excuse he needed.

In the end, it was my knowledge of the danger that bought him the time he required to plant the seeds of doubt that would keep me there for another two years. For as I waited for the moment when I could escape or make a call, he was there full of contrition and affirmations of his love. The excuses for his anger and why I had to help him overcome this ugly part of who he was. He loved me, he adored me, but most of all, he needed me. Tears poured down his face as he wept at my feet, begging for my forgiveness and promising me that he would never hurt me again. This became our dance – dread and fear, ideal circumstances of isolation, violence, contrition, appeals for grace and affirmations of love, a few days of peace and hope, and then a return to dread.

When I share my story today, someone always asks the question, “Why did you stay?” The answer is not simple, for the threads that bind an abuser to their victim are so thin that they are invisible to the eyes of those not ensnared by them, but their strength is in numbers. I could say that I stayed for the children, and for a time, I believed that was true. I could say I stayed because I loved him, and I also believed that was true. I could say that I stayed because I believed that I could help him get better and we could move beyond the rage that filled his heart and mind, and this, too, I believed was true. But even all of these things do not begin to encompass the reasons I stayed, for as these threads were shredded under the weight of reality, others took their place binding me with equal efficiency.

But perhaps the biggest factor in keeping me there as long as I was, was nothing more than the idea that I should feel good about walking away from my abuser, that there would be a sense of joy and vindication at leaving such an evil situation and person. It was the response that those who loved me wished for me, encouraged me to reach for, and to embrace as my right. So I waited, hoping that I could find a sliver of the right feeling to propel me forward.

It never came.

I cried the day I packed up mine and my children’s meager belongings. I wept as I loaded my friend and brother’s trucks with the odds and ends of furniture while I prayed that my husband would not return. I did not leave a triumphant victor, but slunk away a broken and defeated shell of a woman.

It took me a long time to realize that I was not grieving the loss of my abuser, my emotional captor. It took me a long to stop feel shame for missing him and wanting to find a way back in hopes of repairing our broken marriage. It took a long time to unweave the threads that bound me, and I learned the truth that had been so carefully hidden from me – I was not grieving the loss of the man who left bruises on my ribs or bloodied my lips. I was not aching to return to marriage wrecked with violence. I was not grieving for the reality lost.

I was grieving for the death of a dream, the hope and promise of what should been, of who he claimed to be. I was crying for the person I loved, not the person he was. I was missing the man he had promised to be and had never become. My heart ached for the dream that would never be, and the person that I would never be because I dared to place my faith in lie.

Who can feel joy, or even vindication, at such truth? For even if my head could not understand it in those moments, my heart did. I will forever be the divorcee, the single mom, the abuse victim, and the woman I never intended to be. Picket fences and daisies edging the yard were ripped from my future. Happily ever after was consigned once again to fairy tales, when I had been promised it could be mine.

Grief was and is the proper response.

It was only when the pain of reality became bigger than the fear of losing a dream that was already dead that I could leave. And it was only when I could find the strength to face the truth that the dream had died a long time ago that I could turn loose of the man who killed it.

Why do I share this dark part of my life? Why when I have moved on, found new dreams and new visions for my future that have exceeded anything that I may have clung to before? Because there is a woman out there, right now, who believed the lie I once did. She is working so hard not to make him mad, and she dancing a dance I know all too well, but sister, it is time to realize that dream is dead and it is not coming back. Walking away means you will have to accept that cold hard truth, and you will grieve. Friends and family will not understand why it fills you with sadness, and they won’t get the tears or why you are not happy about reclaiming your life and freedom, but that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that you do.

Healing will come. New dreams will be found, and life will change if you have the courage to walk away. It will not be as you envisioned it before, but it can be greater than you dare hope for now. I promise, because I have lived it and I am here to tell my tale.

Jael - Most Blessed of Women

There are just some stories in the Bible that I wish had been written by women. Men are good at giving us the facts, but let’s face it, if you want all the little juicy details, usually you need a woman to do the telling. The story of Jael, for instance, is one of those tales that would benefit from a few additional details. I mean, who was this woman who took down one of the most brutal generals in Israel’s history? What was she like? Where did she get the guts to do something so audacious and bold? I have read her story countless times, and each time I have been left wanting more.

I don’t think you have to be a Bible scholar to know that Jael seems to leap from the pages of history and demand that we acknowledge her as someone special. After all, how many women in the Bible do we see engaged in battle and subterfuge?  And then we have Jael, whose quick and decisive action is among one of the goriest and most celebrated scenes in the Bible.

We know that she was Kenite and married to Heber. They had separated from the rest of his tribe to settle near Kedesh which is close to Megiddo – if that name sounds familiar, it should as it is the same place identified as the Armageddon, a foreshadowing of the bloody future of this place, perhaps? The Kenites are an interesting people unto themselves, as they were the descendants of Moses’ father-in-law who was recognized as priest and one Moses’ trusted advisors. Some traditions trace their lineage to Cain, due to similarities in the two names Kenite and Cain (the connection is far more obvious in the Hebrew) and the belief that they were skilled metal workers, a trade also connected the children of Cain. (Genesis 4:17-22).

If Heber was a skilled metallurgist then that might explain why there was friendship between King Jabin (Sisera’s boss) and himself. (Judges 4:17). Jabin needed someone to make his weapons of war, and who better than a Kenite smith? And that friendship is probably why Sisera felt that Jael’s tents would be a safe place to hide. (Moral number one of this story, your friends’ wives are not required to like you so never assume they do.)

But this also adds an interesting twist to the story – Sisera was at the very least a social acquaintance with Jael’s husband, possibly the primary source of their income. Jael was familiar enough to walk out and greet him, call him by name, so there had been some previous contact between the two. In a society and culture where we picture women as completely subservient to their men, her actions become even more outrageous when we consider that little fact.

If we read only the Judges 4 account, the situation seems rather cut and dry. Sisera entered the tent, Jael covered him, he asked for water, she gave him milk, covered him again, he fell asleep, and she put a tent peg through his temple. However, some scholars to believe that Sisera not only imposed upon Jael for a place to hide, but that he also raped her.

The basis for this view are the multiple references to Jael covering Sisera in chapter four, a common Biblical metaphor sex as I covered in my post about Ruth, and the emphasis placed on violence in Deborah’s song, verses 26 and 27. Particular attention is paid to verse 27 and the repeated refrain:

“Between her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still; between her feet he sank, he fell; there he where he sank he fell – dead.”

If you read my post on Ruth, you also know that the word feet is a euphemism for genitals, and it is believed by some that the first “between her feet he sank, he fell, he lay still” refers to the rape, and the second and third  time refers to Jael turning the table on this man who abused her. Penetration for penetration, if you will.

Adding to this argument is the fact that Deborah even mocks the lust of the Sisera and his men in verse 30a:

“Have they (Sisera and his men) not divided the spoil? – a womb or two for every man;”

“Womb” being the closest Hebrew word for vagina you will find and the word is placed in the mouth of Sisera’s mother as she waits for her conquering son to return from war.

Do I agree with this view? Let’s just say, I don’t dismiss it as a possibility. Sisera was a man of violence, he went to the tent of a women (why not Heber’s tent?), and raping women was considered part and parcel with warfare. We have every reason to believe that he was capable and willing to commit such a heinous act. What I do not like about this view is the fact that it has been used to discount Jael’s bravery and justify her violence, and therefore denying her example as bold woman to anyone who does not have this strong provocation. However, the truth is we will probably never know exactly what happened in that tent and in the end we are left with nothing but speculation to flesh out the bare skeleton of what was recorded in Scripture.

What we should not lose sight of is what do know with certainty. Jael showed courage and strength. She did not let societal constraints or even her husband’s friendship with Jaben to stop her from putting an end to the enemy of God’s people. She risked her life when she opened her tent and allowed him to enter, a risk posed first by Sisera himself and then by her husband who could denounce her for adultery as she had welcomed another man into her private quarters. She did not shy away from the gore of the task, and she did not do it in half measures.

This earned her an extraordinary honor that was reserved for only one other woman in history. Look at verse 24:

“Most blessed of women be Jael.”

There is only one other place in the Bible where this blessing is given, Luke 1:42, when Elizabeth greets the pregnant Mary. I think there is a reason why God chose to link these two women this way. Each of them accepted a role in history that required great courage and posed significant danger to their lives and reputations. Both delivered a death blow to the enemy of God’s people, and I don’t think he wanted us to forget the sheer grit that honoring him would require of them. I don’t think he wanted us to believe that good women are weak women or even proper women. I think he wanted us to know that our service to him would cost us, place us in positions of danger, and cause us to be the subject of scandal of gossip.

I think he wanted us to know and remember the truth. We are daughters of the High Priest. We are have been chosen because he knew we could handle the gore and violence of this life, and we strong enough handle the rumors about what we may have done or what may have been done to us. He expects to eradicate evil when it enters home, even in the guise of friendship and to not be intimidated when the men of this world have formed evil alliances. He promises to redeem our reputations and honor us for being faithful the call he placed on our lives. He sees who we really are and in knowing that we find the strength to deal the death blows to the enemies who threaten his children, and these are the truths, my sisters, which we should cling to as women of God.

Deborah - A Man's Shame Or An Inspiring Woman

I grew up listening to the story of Deborah, and I was always fascinated by this woman who poses far more questions than the Scripture answers. I wanted to know how she attained her position in a land ruled by men, how did she essentially become the commander of an army, and why, why, why was it always told as cautionary tale to the men and never an inspiring word to the women?

You can find her story in Judges 4 and then a recap in Judges 5 wherein she and Barak sing the song of their victory.  Now if you know anything about the book of Judges you will know that is odd that a woman takes center stage. This is a book of men about the doings of men, more significantly, it is a book of daring heroism, drama, sexploits, and raw adventures. This is not a book about housekeeping or cooking. It isn’t even a book about love, romance, marriage, or any of the other common Biblical themes for women, and yet, here is Deborah, a woman whose life plays out in the middle of the blood and gore without one mention of her domestic skills – possibly, not even a mention her husband.

We find Deborah in a time when God had “surrendered (Israel) to King Jabin of Canaan.” (Judges 4:2). The people of Israel had been battered and abused for over twenty years, and they had enough. They cried out to the Lord for deliverance, and so we are introduced to Deborah.

“Deborah, wife of Lappidoth, was prophetess; she led Israel at that time. She used to sit under the Palm of Deborah, between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites would come to her for decisions.” Judges 4:4, 5

Let’s begin by explaining why I said her story may not include any mention of her husband, when it’s right there in the middle of the verse. Hebrew can be difficult language and there are few phrases in the Bible that still leave scholar scratching their heads, and this is one them. (Now before anyone gets too upset about that little fact, just know that these phrases usually have little or no bearing on communicating the message of the text. They do not affect the integrity of the story or any issue of faith and practice, they just leave us with some interesting “what-ifs” to entertain.) This phrase can have two different meanings one is obviously “wife of Lappidoth” as it is traditionally read.
However, it can also mean “woman of torches or wicks”.  Each translation is equally appropriate for this fiery woman, and furthermore, unlike other women of the Bible her husband is almost inconsequential to the story. If he was of any significance to our understanding of who and what Deborah was to her people his linage would have been included, but it is not because the story is not about him – it is about a woman who deserves recognition in her own right.

You may also notice another glaring omission, there is no record of Deborah’s children. None, nada, zip. Does this mean she does not have children? Who knows? The point it is it does not matter.
Deborah is a complete person unto herself and her God.

Aside from being the only woman judge remembered in the history of Israel, she is one of only two judges that were also a prophet. Based on this we can extrapolate that she experienced a call to prophecy, was a spokesperson for God, prayed to God on the behalf of the people, and her life functioned as symbol of a greater divine truth. None of this is specifically recorded in Scripture, however, these are the basic events and characteristics that set prophets apart from the general populace.

We are also not told how she came to be the leader of the people of this time. Although, it is highly unlikely that she rose to power simply by sitting beneath palm tree dispense sage advice. When we look at the other judges in the book of Judges, we find military leaders, assassins, and priests. We can almost certainly rule out the possibility of her being a priest – so that narrows the options for her rise to power. (I kind of like the idea of her being an assassin, but that’s probably just my twisted imagination talking.) By whatever means she attained this position, it is evident that the writer did not feel like he needed to offer any background to validate the people’s respect for her.

However, he did include clues as to how the reader was to see her. She prophesied Ramah, a place connected to the ministry of Samuel, the last judge of Israel. (I Samuel 7:17). Rabbinic teach explains that Ramah means heights and by placing the two of them in this geographic location, God was also locating them in place of spiritual heights.

Deborah summons Barak, a military leader, to rise up against their oppressors. Barak, either out of weakness of courage or faith, refuses to budge without Deborah by his side. If you were raised in a conservative church, you know that this is the point where the preacher would condemn Barak and see Deborah’s prophecy that Sisera would be killed by the hand of woman to be an act of judgement against his cowardice. But if you haven’t guessed, this is where I applaud Deborah for not flinching at the challenge and joining Barak on the field.

Again notice what is missing in the text – shock, hesitation, fear – Deborah expresses none of these things. She simply says she will go and informs him of the consequences, but even then he does not flinch. He wants her there with him. Why? Is it because she is a prophet and holy woman that is not unheard of in ancient cultures. Or could it be that Deborah’s background and experience, the part of her life that secured her position as a judge, was one of battle? I don’t know, and I am not claiming to. All I am saying is Deborah was woman to be reckoned with and the men of her day recognized that and honored her for it.

Deborah’s word proves to be true, and Sisera is killed by Jael..
After the battle, Barak and Deborah relate the events in song which the Bible specifically says they sang together. What I find to be so interesting is that Barak sang too. This is not the action of a man who feels shame. This is a man who is expressing gratitude and honor for those it is due, starting with God and his intervention in the fight, praising Deborah for rising up and proclaiming the “Mother of Israel”, celebrating the warriors who joined him on the field, and rejoicing over Jael’s bravery. We do not know who sang which verses, but we do know their voice combined to form the song, even if tradition attributes the bulk of it to Deborah.

Of all the songs of Israel, there are ten deemed to be the most significant. The first among them all is Moses’ song upon the deliverance from Egypt found in Exodus 15. The importance of his song is commemorated by the style in which it is written, “brick above tile and tile above brick” (Megillah 3:7), so that it stands apart even in the printed word. There is only one other song given this honor, and it is the Song of Deborah, connecting her to the tradition of Moses as prophet, leader, and deliverer of the people.

We have to stop treating Deborah and the other women of the Bible as bit players to men’s drama. The story isn’t significant because a man missed out on the chance for glory. The story is significant because God chose to use a woman of strength and honor to deliver his people. He used Deborah’s obedience to stop the oppression of his children and I think he wants to do that today, but it is not going to happen unless women stand up take their place, speak truth, and dare to ride out onto the battle fields of the day. And we can’t do it if we are not cooperating with the men that God ordained to be at our sides, discounting their role just makes us guilty of sexism. Deborah’s story shows us the value of working together with those who are different than us whether be men or women of different backgrounds like Jael. In her we find inspiration to dare, to dream, and even to celebrate our victories with no shame and no false humility so that others can see how God can use all to accomplish his purposes.

Hannah - The Story Of A Brazen Woman

The women of the Bible will never cease to fascinate me. Living in a time and culture of total male domination, one would think that only the meek and the docile would be deemed worthy or remembrance, but with few exceptions, we find the women most celebrated to be those whose actions pushed the boundaries of societal constraints and refused to be silent in the face of injustice. One such woman was Hannah of I Samuel chapters one and two.

Too often we read this story at the mercy of our modern conditioning. We fail to see the historical and religious significance of her actions, and as usual present her as a pious soul who meekly turned to God in her hour of need. However, a closer reading of the text coupled with an understanding of the times reveals a bold and daring woman who was not just going to shut up and take what life, or God, had given her.

Her story opens with the introduction of her husband, a man with an impressive family tree, and her inclusion in a family where she was one of two wives. Unlike the second wife, Hannah was barren and like so many women the first wife was catty, constantly rubbing it in Hannah’s face that she was a failure as a woman. Despite this Hannah managed to be her husband’s favorite, meriting special treatment and receiving his feeble (and, oh, so male) attempts at comfort. This is our first tip off that Hannah was something special for in this day a woman’s value was often calculated based on the number of sons she presented to her husband. Love matches were a rarity, and marriage was more of business agreement between families than a romantic venture.

From this stand point it would be easy to say that Hannah was far more blessed than many other women of her time. For not only did her husband keep her as a wife, showing affection and consideration of her situation, he further blessed her with a double portion during the time for sacrifices to made.

To understand the emotional ramifications of what Hannah was experiencing we need to understand that barrenness was not considered a simple medical malfunction. Barrenness was a curse from God, often viewed as a judgement for wrong doing, and as Hannah was the only wife barren the judgement would have been seen as failing on her alone. This would have made her suspect among the other women and possibly held social consequence such as being ostracized and topic of small town gossip. Wrapping our modern minds around what she must have experienced is difficult at best.

The story unfolds as the family celebrates together, eating and drinking, while I can only imagine Hannah watching her husband blessing his children by his other wife and fending off the smug attitude of the other woman vying for her husband’s attention. The pain she must have felt knowing that all those present considered her to be a failure and a shame to their family was probably what pushed her over the edge.

For in verse nine we find that Hannah arose, leaving the festivities behind to go and pray at the Tabernacle.

I want you to really think about this for a moment – a woman, unescorted, goes to the Tabernacle! This is where the men gathered to make plans, to discuss battle strategies, to determine how to govern the people, and to do the bloody work of sacrifice. Women went there, but they went as a family to make the appropriate offerings together with their husbands or fathers. Just making that walk was an exercise in courage.

Or was it something else?

Verse ten literally said she was “marat nefesh” or “bitter of soul” - not the typical attitude we are encouraged to have when seeking an audience with God. But could you blame her? God was the one who opens and closes the womb. He was the cause of her disappointment and pain, and she knew this.

The writer of Samuel records her prayer:
“O LORD of Hosts, if you will look upon the suffering of your maidservant and remember me and not forget the sufferings of your maidservant, and if you will grant your maidservant a male child, I will dedicated him to the LORD for all the days of his life; and no razor shall ever touch his head.”

And with those words, she changed the nature of prayer forever – so much so that we do not even recognize them as radical as this has been the way we have been taught to pray since we were children, but to the fledgling nation of Israel, they are unprecedented.

The first words, the title of LORD of Hosts, had never been uttered until they fall from Hannah’s lips, here was a woman who recognized God’s sovereignty not only in her own life but in all the machinations of the universe.  Her prayer simultaneously exalts God beyond previous words spoken to him while declaring her need and right to be remembered as his handmaiden. The demand and glorification stand at odds with each other, presenting the divine tension between humanity and deity in stark contrast to the humility deemed fitting for a woman. Perhaps it takes one who has experienced such agonies to know that if God is too be great, he must be bigger than any pain we experience, and who knows pain better than one whose hopes and dreams have been ripped to shreds?

The Rabbis call her words insolent even as they laud her example as one who dared to speak their heart to the Creator. So impressive was this bold feat that the prescribed methodology for prayer was modeled not after the patriarchs of the Jewish faith, but upon the heartfelt cries of a woman. Daring to be this impassioned before God was a level of bravery that no man had dared to attempt, the fear and trembling of awe struck wonder had been erased as heartache compelled her to brazenness.

If her story had ended there, she would have been mocked and ridiculed as the drunken woman who dared to defile the sacred environment of the Tabernacle with profanity, but thankfully for us all, it did not. Eli confronts her, scandalized by her hysterics, demanding that she be proper before the Lord and in this holy place. Most women would have been cowed and accepted the harsh rebuke in silence, but not our Hannah!

She fires back him with both barrels, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.”

Now, read this as a woman who has been wrongfully accused, not as simpering milksop. Take her prompts for the proper tone and voice for her words. Remember that Hebrew is a very limited language in comparison to ours and know that words often have more than one related definition. She isn’t just saying she was slightly vexed. She deliberately chose a word that also means anger. She wasn’t just dealing with anxiety, once again she chose a word that can mean complain, as in legal complaint. She is letting Eli know that she is beyond just hurt she is MAD and with a just cause. Now plug in all that new knowledge and read her reply again.

Go back and read Eli’s response. Does it sound familiar? It reminds me of my husband when he knows that he had better not argue with me because I am going to go psycho crazy on him for even questioning my right to be upset. It’s the cautious pat on the head before hitting the door to avoid the fallout. It’s the placation in an attempt to defuse the ticking time bomb, but Hannah grabs on to it. You can almost hear her skipping away as she says, “Let your servant find favor in your eyes.”

In Hannah we find far more than an abstraction of piety and humility. We find a woman with a voice, a backbone, and fiery spirit who will not be silenced or dismissed. She rejects cultural norms that would threaten to remove her from the provision of her God, and declares that her identity is ultimately found in him and her relationship to him as his servant. She reveals the true object of her faith as her Lord and Creator, not the men who appeared to have authority over her and recognizes God’s sovereignty to act on her behalf and her right to request it – even when it meant rebuking the spiritual leadership of a nation.

Women should read her story not as rebuke to pray silently and in humility, but rather, that we take our requests boldly to our King. We should not see her as proper, because she wasn’t, and should learn when to disregard propriety for the sake of honesty. From her we should draw inspiration to cast aside societal constraints when they stand between us and our need to have the Father act on our behalf, and most of all, we should be reminded that God remembers us and all the things that have wounded our hearts. He is there, waiting in those holy moments to respond with blessings beyond our imagination if we are brave enough to take even bitter souls before his throne in prayer.

Bloody Issues - When Proper Is Not Proper

"Emily, why don't you share with the class some of the things her condition would entail."

"Oh, yeah, pick me," I smarted off before I could stop myself, but the prof just grinned. I fumbled for a second as I struggled to gather my thoughts. I had never really considered what this woman was going through. After all, we all know that proper Christians blow right by the uncomfortable section of the Bible and focus on the greater theological questions of the text. And this was long before my "scandalous" days, before I had learn to field all those embarrassing biological questions with a certain amount of finesse. 

The text in question was Mark 5:24-34, most commonly referred to as "The Woman With An Issue Of Blood. What a pretty and proper way to phrase it! Imagine if we called it what it is - "The Woman Who Had The Tsunami Of All Periods". Now that grabs your attention. 

Christians have a bad habit of never quite saying what they mean when it comes to issues of sex. We have this entire vocabulary that allows us to reference these unsettling bits of the Bible without actually saying the words. We say things like: "he knew his wife", "the way of women", "uncovered nakedness", "issues", "discharge", "violate", "immorality", "impure", or if you are daring, "sexual sin".

The problem is when we use all our proper little code words we do to things to the text:

1. We prevent those who did not get the secret Christian decoder ring from understanding what we are saying.

2. We are missing the full impact of what God has to say about our bodies and sex - both good and bad.

Look, I know that we use these terms out of respect. No one wants to be crude and vulgar when dealing with God and the Bible, but we need to ask ourselves some questions:

1. Did God ever sacrifice clarity for propriety?

2. Are we showing more concern for societal demands than what God has said in his Word?

If we consider that when the Bible was written, and recognize it was written in terms that the receiving culture would understand the answers to these questions become clear. God never flinched at our sexuality - even the *ugly* parts. Every time he speaks of sexuality, he is bold, blunt, and honest. So much so that even in the soften English translations it is hard not feel a bit squeamish about passages like Ezekiel 23 or Leviticus 15. And Song of Songs? Read that without imposing metaphor or allegory onto the text and you will find that it is flat out HOT!

But let's return to our original story, the woman who surfed the red tide for twelve years. 

Consider for a moment how changing the language we use to reference it changes our perspective. No longer is God removed from our condition as women. He is not snarling down at out bodies in disgust. Instead God, present with us in the person of Jesus, cares about our bodies. He cares about our periods and physical discomforts. He is not repulsed by our femininity or the evidence of our sex. Instead, he sees even this as reason to respond in compassion and with healing. 

How many women need to know this about our Lord? How many of our sisters need to experience healing in the area of their sexuality in physical, emotional, and spiritual levels? But how many feel that this part of who they are is too repugnant or shameful to bring to our Savior?

In many ways, we have been condemned to live our lives as this unnamed woman. According to law and convention, we are consigned to the role of social outcast, destined to suffer in silent acceptance if we wish to be deemed proper. 

However, I think she shares another truth. In verse 32, Mark says that she told him "the whole truth." How I wish we had a transcript of that conversation! Imagine what it must have been like for her to stand there, looking into Jesus' eyes, telling him about something that most of us have been taught keep hidden. Could today's Christian woman be so bold? So shameless? Or have we lost our ability to come to God with the whole truth in matters of sex?  I hope not, because I believe she is teaching us that if we dare to step in faith, fight our way through the crowds, risk being rebuked for our boldness, we can find that hem to grab hold of and in that moment gain the chance to hear him say, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace."