It's Not About You

Anybody read "The Purpose Driven Life"?
I tried to start it. The first chapter was -- It's not about you!
Which is probably a very good message. But it was the wrong message for me at the wrong time.
As I've mentioned before, I'm married to a man with Adult ADHD. He's a good man with a bad disorder that went undiagnosed for the first 17 years of our marriage. And one thing I learned in those years is that it was never about me. My spouse's disorder consumed him, me, and much of our family life. I already knew it wasn't about me.

So when I read that first chapter of that book, my only reaction was, "NO FREAKING KIDDING IT'S NOT ABOUT ME! When has it EVER been about me?" I wanted to throw the book against the wall.
Needless to say, it was the wrong book for me at the time.

The books I needed and read were the ones that said things like, "When your family member's disorder has you tied up in a pretzel, it's not only okay to back off and take time for yourself, you NEED to take time to take care of yourself. If you don't you will have a break down and you will not be able to help yourself let alone your family."

In addition God led me into Song of Solomon (SOS) and opened my understanding to it so that I could see... Yes, even in the Bible, sometimes IT IS about me. It is about my needs and my healing and what makes me happy.

God showed me that He has seen my burnt out state from dealing with my husband's disorder. He has seen the bitterness that this disorder launched within me. He was deeply concerned over my pain. He cared for my wounds, my needs, my healing. And He showed that to me in SOS and Ezekiel 16 and Hosea 2 and even Psalm 45 (which we haven't gone to yet). Provision for my wounded female heart, and all female hearts had been provided. I just had to let Him show me.

So this is why it upsets me so when preachers mess with SOS. This is why it irks me when supposed Bible teachers play fast and loose with the scriptures.

This is why when the Main Shock Jock (MSJ) twisted parts of SOS that pertained to what the female thought, wanted, needed and how the male met those needs and made it all about what the male thought, wanted, needed and how the female was to meet those needs I had an intense reaction.

And now I know who "The Purpose Driven Life" is written for. It's written for men who think it's all about them. It's all about them getting what they want and using the Bible to do it. It's about men who turn scriptures around and take the portion given to women away from the women and giving it to the men so that the gospel becomes even better for men at the expense of women. It is written to men who want to twist the gospel into a male favoring gospel.

Am I getting out of line?

Well, maybe. But my next post will be about a section of scripture that MSJ, either intentionally or unintentionally, turned on it's head. He took words that were attributed to the female and gave them to the male then used that as an admonishment to wives to meet their husband's needs.

Understand. I know everybody has needs. But sometimes, some young, male preachers have very strong drives within themselves. And some of these drives have not been contained using the fruit of the Spirit of self-control. And these preachers make the mistake of overlooking the needs of women or even telling women what their needs should be rather than allowing women to have and express their own needs.

The end result is that areas of scripture that women can meditate on for their own healing are taken away from them.

These areas of healing are good for a woman's heart. When her heart is healed, her family gets the benefit because she is better able to love them. She is more complete and able to love more fully. But these women don't even know those healing scriptures exist for them because some man thinks SOS is all about him and his uncontrollable drive and confuses that drive as being a most important need. Since it's all about him and his wife must only have needs pertaining and corresponding to his own needs, he leaves no room for the possibility that anything in SOS might be about anything else. His wife is not allowed to have needs that SOS speaks to that he doesn't approve.

In addition, if a man needs healing in his heart, he can turn to the allegorical nature in SOS, consider himself as part of the Church/Bride, and get in on some of that wondrous healing too. After all, there are men out there married to abusive women or women with disorders. There are men who have been abused by fathers or mothers or both. There are men who have been burnt by school situations, work situation, family situations, or church situations. There are men who need healing in the deep places of their masculine heart, that place no one can really touch or minister to except God.

Which is another reason preachers should not over-sexualize SOS and read sexual content into certain verses that don't even talk about sex. People can't get past the visualizations created by such exaggerations. People cannot get into the healing parts, the parts about the heart, because someone keeps pointing them toward sex. And everyone knows that sex sells. Kingdoms can be built through selling sex. We've seen that with certain men and their girly magazines. Who knew a church could be built on it? But it's a kingdom built on sand.

So anyway. The title of this post should have been, "Hey guys! SOS is NOT all about you and your needs and how you think sex should be and how your wife can work real hard to make it that way for you." Yes, I know, it is in part about you and in part about sex. But it is also about how you can love and give and listen to your wives, how you can woo her. It's about her hurts and her needs. You can either be like the brothers in SOS 1:6 who demand service and harp on how her body can best serve you. Or you can be like the Lover and actually LOVE her heart and soul and be part of her healing if she needs it.

Some of you not seeing it yet? Yeah, I know. It's hard to see the forest for the trees. It's hard to see the overall view of SOS when all the teaching you've had is someone over focusing on the "good bits" that tantalize and cater to the male libido like a girly magazine.