Growing in Grace

My daughter found a notebook today with notes from a marriage conference we attended back when we were heavily entrenched in the patriarchal movement. These lists make me cringe. My apologies to my children for all the warped teaching we heaped upon them during those years.

Earlier today I was having lunch with a friend and I was trying to explain how we got caught up in it all. I told her that because my husband and I came into our marriage impure and quite secular, once Christ changed our hearts we wanted desperately to protect our children from making the same mistakes. The patriarchal movement was just so beautiful and sparkly with its prairie dresses and large families and homeschooling and family integrated churches and wheat grinding and Bible studies at daddy's knee (and there's nothing wrong with any of those things in and of themselves... I still love many of those things). It seduced us into it with the promise that if you just follow these principles, you'll raise godly children that will be protected from sin and heartache and they'll walk into marriage pure as the driven snow, never rebel, and their hearts will belong to their parents and to the Lord all of their days. It was exchanging Christ's righteousness and grace for a mess of pottage. I'm thankful He opened our eyes to our idolatry. I repent of all of it.

But this list, y'all. It's embarrassing.