Joyfully At Home: Chapter Eight - Part Five

Merry Christmas!

This was the first Christmas Spawn was old enough to have some idea of what is going on.   We celebrated with my family on Christmas Eve and will be celebrating with my husband's family later today. 

My dad helped Spawn unwrap a Christmas gift.  They carefully took the paper off and Spawn cheered with happiness when he saw his present was an Amazon packing box.   Spawn then happily patted all the sides of the box and looked completely satisfied that he had received such a nice box!  It had sides!  It was the perfect size for him!

There was a moment of distress when my dad opened the box - but finding out that the box had FLASHLIGHTS in it was even better!

Earlier this week, we celebrated Spawn's first Christmas party at school.   That was absolutely amazing and funny.  Spawn was so excited to show off how much faster he could walk with his walker at school that his entire body wiggled.  I'll never forget him charging down the hallway yelling "YAY!  YAY!  YAY!"   The morning Special Ed class which has 7 boys, one girl and an average age of 3.5 joined the Young Fives class across the hall to sing seasonal songs.  A song where the kids bowed at the waist caused so much excitement in the older group that some kids fell over from the momentum of enthusiastic bowing.  Meanwhile, the little kids were seated and bowing completely randomly so they looked like they were doing "The Wave" at a sports game. 

It was everything a Christmas party with little ones should be!

Speaking of situations that are joyous, high-energy and a bit chaotic.....that's how I remember crushes and dating!   Happy, fun, a bit messy; who knew preschool parties were early preparation for your love life :-P

Except - in CP/QF land. 

In a failed attempt to make dating safe, they've created a model of courtship that moves the stakes much, much higher emotionally without making the experience more fun.

See the following example:

The sixth way that helped me was to wait and see. We don't know what the Lord's plans are for our lives are. Someday we might pray vehemently for feelings to be removed that were meant to be there, and will continue to struggle with them until the object of our emotions marries us already (did I just say that out loud?). Someday, we'll pray vehemently for feelings to be removed and will wake up one morning to find that they have been. In any case, we have to wait patiently, and to strive to be faithful while we wait, to trust in the Lord Sovereign timing, and his plan for our lives. (pg. 98)

Man, Jasmine was SO close to seeing the crazy-impossibleness inherent in Emotional Purity (Emo-Pure). 

Emo-Pure Assumption: Attraction is only Lawful towards your Future Spouse.

Problematic Result 1: I am attracted to Man, therefore he should marry me!

Reality: You can be deeply attracted to someone who would make an awful spouse.  Some people with personality disorders are very charming and make their partners feel deeply special at first.  More broadly, there are a lot of stand-up, kind, hardworking men who are good husbands - but would be miserable with me - and vice versa.

Problematic Result 2: I'm praying my knees raw in hopes that God will remove these pesky feelings - except these feelings turn out to be lawful since we get married in 2021.

Reality:  We can't read the future - but Emo-Pure makes women and men repress sexual feelings about their future spouses.   That's a weird, weird thing to do to a couple.

Practically, Emo-Pure causes surreal behaviors like the ones shared in the next quote:

The best thing you can do as a young woman to encourage Godly manhood in the young men around you is to allow them to initiate. This does not mean that you avoid him like the plague ( your lack of attention is almost as noticeable as being over attentive - I remember once, I was so enamored with a young man that every time he came around, I would dive into the ladies room or hide behind my dad or look off in the other direction while he came walking up to talk to me. It seemed completely logical the time, and, of course now, every time I think about the wounded look on the poor man's face, I'd like to sink into the floor), but it does mean that you don't take opportunities to treat him with any more deference than you would any other man. (pg. 99)

*flinches*

Emo-Pure is so fucked up that Jasmine thought the best thing to do when approached by a guy she was attracted to was to hide in the bathroom or duck behind her dad.   Remember, this guy isn't going to proposition her to have sex right then and there; he just wants to talk to her.   Talking to a member of the opposite sex isn't a sin.  Hell, it's not even approaching an occasion that might lead to sinning unless one or both people are looking at each other as sex objects rather than people created in the likeness and image of God.

Emo-Pure is so fucked up that 19-year old Jasmine is chiding her younger self for telegraphing her emotions by absence as much as she is for making the poor guy feel like a leper.   Most likely, the other guy thought she hated him for some unknown reason. 

Do Americans treat anyone with deference as a matter of course?  I'm struggling to think of an occasion where I treat someone with deference.  I can only think of times where I am around someone who is highly knowledgeable in an area that I am not.   Conversely, Americans prefer that authorities respond to deference by making the subordinate feel welcome rather than keeping the proper level of separation between ranks. 
Enjoy the new year!