Intimacy With God--Creepy out of Context!!!

I have been thinking a lot lately about my sexual past (or lack thereof), and human sexuality in general.  Is it just me, or does the phrase "in love with Jesus" sound a bit creepy (unless you're Hispanic of course)?  I was raised in a para-charismatic/calvinistic/Amish/Pentecostal home church environment, and soaked in phraseology such as "Christ is our Bridegroom", "You must be in love with Jesus above all others", "if you're not satisfied in Christ you won't be satisfied with anything else either", "we are looking forward to being married to Jesus someday in heaven", "even your marriage is secondary to your relationship with Jesus", "be romanced by Jesus" (here is a line from a song we sang in church almost every Sunday: "Romance me, O Lover of my Soul, to the song of all songs!"),  and so on ad nauseum to the exclusion of many other much more important tenets of Christianity.

"In love with Jesus"--really?  Sounds a bit psychotic to me.  I used to think that if I were a straight guy, talking about being in love with a man-God called Jesus would taste weird in my mouth.  It already tasted weird enough to me as a teenage girl learning to deal with the world of sexual feelings and urges and thoughts, and felt like a form of Deophilia (is there such a thing?  I think I just made up a word!)

Do I love Jesus Christ--the Man who created the world, and loved me enough to die horribly in my place on the Cross?  Hell yeah!  I love, respect, and honor Him with all my heart, and live my life by His principles and teachings, and teach my children to love and honor and pray to Him, and walk with Him in their daily lives.  But "in love" with Him?  Ew!

"Romance is the expressive and pleasurable feeling from an emotional attraction towards another person. This feeling is often associated with sexual attraction. It is eros rather than agape, philia, or storge." Wikipedia

The phrase "in love," or the word "romance", is inextricably entwined with sexual overtures.  What made me wake up sweating at night was not in the least theological.  What lit my teenage brain on fire and made me cry my eyes out with guilt was not the Sermon on the  Mount.  It was cute boys, by golly!  I will never forget how wicked and sinful and low down and worthless I felt because I had been taught that sexual feelings are the blackest of sins, and I could not stop them.  I cried and prayed and resolutely banished the thoughts in Jesus' name, and they kept returning like the proverbial cat on the front porch.  I felt like a hopelessly evil person for having them, and I wanted so much to be good!  I was told to give those feelings to God, and direct them towards Jesus.  The problem was that Jesus is not a flesh and blood being in my life who I can hold and snuggle with at night and make babies with.  Again, ew!  In all my Bible reading I didn't make the connection until my 20's that one of the first verses in the book is God declaring, "IT IS NOT GOOD FOR MAN TO BE ALONE" (Genesis 2:18)

I repeat, It is NOT GOOD for man (or woman) to be alone.  God Himself said it, in a context where man was sinless and walking with Him personally every day, in perfect harmony.  If that was enough for Adam, God needn't have bothered making a woman for him!  He could have invented some other way for the human species to propagate.

Me at age 13

If I had stopped and realized what this verse meant in my budding womanhood, it would have saved me years of mental agony and torture, and I could have dealt with the normal jungle of puberty without all the added lions and tigers and pitfalls, in the normal and appropriate fashion.  It is perfectly normal for a teenage girl to like boys, in fact it is abnormal for a girl to not be interested in young men.  Adults need to remember what it was like in high school, and cut the kids some slack.  Teach them to be smart and how to deal with their urges appropriately, or things like teenage pregnancies, porn addiction, or forced asexuality (as in my case) are only a few of the unnecessary issues they will face.

I remember the crushing loneliness, the tear soaked pillows, the loss of appetite, the black spiraling cloud of feeling unwanted and unloved.  The memories are fading into the distance with time.  My handsomely sexy husband made sure I forgot them a little more last night.  (He was one of my first crushes, and caused me more mental pain and uneaten dinners than all the others put together!  I was sure I had to marry someone I didn't find attractive, because sexual attraction is a sin.  Thank God I figured it out in time, lol!)  I have the sweetest babies to hug and kiss and make me forget every day.  And I will make darn sure they don't experience the same twisted philosophy and guilt ridden teachings that I did!

TEXAS OR BUST!

It's hard for me to believe that less than a week ago I was going about my daily tasks and duties, oblivious to the fact that my life would change forever within 24 hours.  I am so glad we cannot see the future in this grand adventure called Life!

Hurricane Harvey devastated the Houston area of southern Texas a few weeks ago, and as TJ and I discussed the news, we toyed with the idea of moving to another state.  Both of us are born and raised Californians, and both of us love the idea of living life with purpose instead of getting stuck in a rut.  And both of us have never lived outside of our home state (other than extended trips).

The result of this conversation was that I called up my dear old Uncle Lemonglayde in Canyon, Texas (near Amarillo) to find out information about the Lone Star State--he and his family having escaped Cali and moved there over ten years ago.  The result of that conversation and many follow up discussions between TJ and myself of our future hopes and plans was that we are bound for the Promised Land of Texas, leaving around October 20th!

Everything we looked at pointed east for us, and it seemed like everyone we talked to had either considered moving to Texas at some point or knew someone there.  Even the Sunday sermon was about Abraham and Isaac leaving their families to sojourn in the land of Canaan.  Lots of people expressed the fact that they'd miss us, but are so glad for the good opportunity God has provided for our family.  We made a list of pros and cons, and the pros were long and extended past the bottom edge of the paper.  The con was singular and simple: moving away from both of our immediate families.  But this isn't the old days, where you never traveled outside the area you were born and raised and people who left were seldom heard from again.  A long day's car ride, or a two hour flight makes visiting relatively easy, and of course the hundred and one ways of keeping in contact through phone calls, chat, texting and other social media are available.  So even that con is a faded one.

Yesterday I commenced the process of selling off all our worldly goods that we cannot bring with us.  It's a cleansing process, and fills me with joy to get rid of boxes and boxes of STUFF we don't need.  I am somewhat of a pack rat, and had about ten plastic bins full of fabric from years of sewing projects.  Gone.  Six book shelves full of books reduced to four boxes, the rest--Gone.  Four boxes of old files and memories scanned into digital media so I no longer need to store the originals.  Crates upon crates of old tools, duplicate tools, building supplies, exotic wood pieces I've been saving for ten years, for a project "someday"--Gone.  Oh glorious feeling of cleanliness!  All our possessions must be reduced to what will fit in a small U-Haul towed behind TJ's Ford Ranger.

It's a good day.  God is good.  Family is good.  Everything is good.

What I will miss the most are the friends we've made here and the church we've been thoroughly enjoying being part of.  Family, you will always see whether you want to our not--LOL.  Friends tend to fall off the radar and fade into the distance.  I will miss you all so very much!

Bella has started jumping up and down at random times and yelling "Yay Texas!"  It's so cute.  Our girls are going to love it there!

I still pinch myself every so often to make sure I'm not dreaming.

Greer Family Update

Many overturnings and upheavals of the Greer household have transpired since my last post.  My original intention of writing a journal entry every day, no matter how short, has obviously fallen into the gutter over the summer.  I will briefly recap.

Goodbye old house!

In the end of June, we found out suddenly and without warning that we needed to move.  It was a combination of raising the rent on us and several other things unnecessary to discuss in a public format.  Suffice to say that we couldn't stay in our sweet little cottage of a house any longer, and God's providing hand showed strong when within an hour we had found another place!  In other words, in one week we had painted our new place and in another week had moved in.  It's small and has no A/C, which made weathering the worst heat wave Bakersfield has seen in years quite interesting.  The temperature has averaged between 85 and 90 in the house, with the swamp cooler working 24/7.  Thank God I'm not pregnant!

We have managed to survive, thanks to the generosity of friends allowing us to cool off in their swimming pools, and have learned to enjoy Bakersfield's free water parks.  One night the power went off for about seven hours, and of course we could not sleep.  We went out and strolled through the mall, letting Bella play in the kid area, and then went to the movies.  This was a particular treat because we cut movies out of our budget in an attempt to save money.  We saw the latest Spiderman movie, which I enjoyed far more than any of the previous six Spiderman movies!  I'm looking forward to the rest of that series now.  We got home at 1 a.m. and the power was back on.  What could have been a miserable time had turned into a fun family adventure.

I make it a practice of looking for things to enjoy about our new place.  I love my enormous backyard, complete with a clothesline.  I feel so old-timey and Amish, hanging out my laundry to dry.  It's a feeling of kinship with all the women throughout the ages who have hung out their household's clothing to dry in the sun!  I like the extra bedroom in my house, too.  Finally the girls have a room all to themselves, and my desk and sewing and  crafting has a room to itself as well.

TJ has been working so much overtime, it seems like we hardly get to see him.  He and I have managed to make the minutes we are together count, and this month we will have been together three years!  This week some dear friends blessed us by watching the girls so we could go on a romantic date together.  I am so privileged to be married to a person who blesses me daily!  He is so easy to live with, and still makes me laugh with his humor and cry with his self sacrifice and dedication to providing for our little family, and with his love for our babies.  He is Elizabeth's favorite, and she crawls to him and climbs up his pants legs every chance she gets, favoring him with wet baby kisses!  Bella loves hanging out with her daddy, learning from him about tools and music and prayer and how to play hide 'n' seek.

My firstborn, my little buddy

The girls are growing up so quickly.  Bella will be two at the end of this month!  She is incredibly smart and articulate, and loves expressing her thoughts in speech. I love her soft, high pitched little voice!  She plays with her dolls, doing all the same things with them that I do with Lizzy.  Yesterday she took her doll on a ride on her tricycle, put it in Lizzy's walker, and fed it lunch.  So cute!  She observes and imitates those around her to an alarming and amusing degree.  

Elizabeth is truly named Sunshine.  She bestows her open mouthed baby smiles on anyone who stops to speak with her, and doesn't mind being held by strangers.  She is a professional crawler, and chases her older sister all over the house!  She is practicing standing alone as well.  She and Bella are best buds, and spend hours playing and talking together.  Bella showers her with hugs and kisses and the occasional clonk on the noggin, and shares all her food with her.

With two active young ladies in our household, family emergencies occur daily. Elizabeth is expert at getting stuck under the furniture.  Yesterday Bella picked up a bee and got stung.  She was quite brave after I applied healing salve to draw out the poison.  She kept exclaiming "Bee! Owie!  Hurt!  Sting!  Finger!" using all the words she knew that would apply to the situation.  Later that evening Bella opened the small fridge in the kitchen and licked the freezer part, getting her lips and tongue painfully stuck.  She shrieked in surprise and horror, and pulled away with painful results.  She said her favorite phrase over and over, "Get you! Get you!  Cold, get you!"  

I have come to the conclusion that parenting for the first few years mainly consists of keeping your kids from dying.

I will try to discipline myself to be more consistent with blogging in the future.

Peace out.

Fourth of July

Besties

Cooling off!

Moving the piano

Hello, new house!

Shopping with Mommy

My favorite picture ever, so far, of my girlies!