Stereotypes

I didn’t see it, but saw the commercial, for a new game show called “Identity.” The idea is that you see a bunch of people and then a list of possible identities and have to match the correct person to the correct identity. Who is the organ donor? Who is the crocodile wrestler? The teacher? The Nobel Prize winner? The tractor mechanic?

As a married woman with five children, there isn’t a lot of mystery left to me—at least on the surface. But, I think it’s really important that wives maintain some mystery, keep some tricks up their sleeves, and surprise their husbands once in a while. One thing I never want to be is a stereotype.

I am a homeschooling mom who does not own a single denim jumper. (If you ever see me in one, you have my permission to throw a can of paint on me like those animal rights activists do to fur-wearing old ladies.)

I am a natural childbirth advocate, certified childbirth educator and doula who scandalized colleagues in the birth world when they realized that the reason I wasn’t home eight days post-partum when they called was because we were having our son circumcised.

I’m a Pentecostal pastor’s wife who does not have big hair. (But, maybe not from lack of trying. My hair is decidingly hippy, despite my best efforts.)

I’m a pastor’s kid who never got in trouble. (I didn't say never got caught.)

I’m a health food/whole food nut who loves ice cream.

I’m a wannabe vegetarian who can’t resist all-beef hotdogs with sauerkraut.

I’m an attachment parent--a co-sleeping, baby wearing, extended breastfeeding, and cloth diaper fanatic--who still believes that spanking is a good idea sometimes.

One thing I hope never to be is a stereotype. I don’t want all my ideas coming from the same place. I don’t want to give up all my mystery. I don’t want to ever bore my husband and I do hope to embarrass my children quite often as they grow older. I hope I’m a sixty year old who decides to learn how to surf, or who wakes up at the crack of dawn to pass out tracts to people doing Tai Chi on the beach. I always want to be learning a little more about myself and who God created me to be. I don’t ever want to get to the place where I think I’ve got myself all figured out. Sure, I want to be accepting of myself (and I think I am) but I also don’t want to settle.

To become a stereotype, to me, would mean allowing boundaries on my life that God didn’t put there. It would mean being molded, but not necessarily by the hand of God.

See, I believe that God has created His creatures far more complex than can be figured out in the 70 years we have on earth, and certainly not in the 28 that I’ve been around.

I think if I can remain a mystery to myself, I can keep some mystery in my marriage too. And I can make my husband laugh when he finds me in the bathtub with all my clothes on, with the kids, pretending that we are the children of Israel and I’m Moses parting the Red Sea. (Laugh if you want, but the kids sure liked it!)

The only one I am not a mystery to is God, who made me, knows me and loves me. Somehow Christians got the idea along the way that the “more Christ-like we become the less like ourselves we will be.” And I just think that is a distortion of the Truth, that the world and the enemy would like us to believe.

In The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, a book of letters written from an uncle demon to his nephew demon on how to keep a man from becoming a following of Christ (The “Enemy” referenced, therefore, is Jesus.) has this interesting passage:

“Of course I know that the Enemy also wants to detach men from themselves, but in a different way. Remember always that He really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. When He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am most afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever. Hence, while He is delighted to see them sacrificing even their innocent wills to His, He hates to see them drifting away from their own nature for any other reason.”

The real challenge in this world is not to conform and to be a success according to the world. Because, success according to God means something completely different. It’s more important for me to be a success as a human being than a success as a homeschooling mom, a childbirth advocate, a pastor’s wife, a vegetarian, or an attachment parent.

“Everybody has a vocation to some form of life work. But, behind that and deeper than that, everybody has a vocation to be a person, to be fully and deeply a human being, to be Christ-like. And the second thing is more important than the first. It is more important to be a great person than a great teacher, butcher, or candlestick maker. And if the only chance of succeeding in the second is to fail in the first, the failure, from God’s point of view, is fruitful.” (Brennan Manning)