Author: rebekah

Here Comes Halloween

By rebekah | Filed under Family Stuff, Uncategorized | Tags:

Bel Halloween

Once upon a time when we were living in England, I kept hearing this one particular song everywhere I went. I think it was around Christmas, so I was out shopping a lot – and the song was everywhere. It had a great vibe and I liked it, so I downloaded it and added it to the mix. My dad had taught me early on that you should always read the lyrics so that you know what you’re singing along to . . . and that’s a habit that has stuck with me to this day. As an aside, that habit is especially important as a parent – who wants to find out later that your kids have all memorized something filthy that you’ve been playing around the house every day? Anyway, I remember that I had looked up the lyrics to this song and they were completely nonsensical and poetically unimpressive, but there wasn’t anything problematic about it in that way. And it was a great song to cook to. I always love it when the music is turned up and everyone is in the kitchen helping, and like I said, this song had a great vibe. So it was definitely having a presence around the homefront as well as in the Christmas sales around Oxford.

After a week or so, apropos of nothing, I looked up the band. It wasn’t a group that I was familiar with, and so in a moment of curiosity I googled them. Read More

Courtship Tales

By rebekah | Filed under Marriage | Tags:
Same leather jacket as our first date.
Same leather jacket as our first date . . . and I still like hangin on while he drives!

This is a bit random, but I thought I’d do an entirely anecdotal post about courtship. What with all the hullaballoo lately on the interwebs on this particular topic, I thought I’d just share what it was like for me.

Dad (as you may or may not know) wrote Her Hand in Marriage which is a biblical defense for the courtship model, and that book is one of the things which put courtship on the map in the first place. He had been teaching on the subject for several years, and then he put everything all in one place in that book. Josh Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye first came out right around the same time as my dad’s book – I don’t know which one came first. Personally, I think that moment in the late ‘90s was right for this subject because the first wave of kids raised in the Christian education movement were just reaching marriageable age. I was the oldest in my family, and I had gone all the way through a classical school from kindergarten onwards, and of course the Harrises were right at the beginning of the wave of homeschooling.

I’m only speaking for myself here because I’ve never even met Josh Harris, Read More

On not being a victim

By rebekah | Filed under Uncategorized | Tags:

bouquetI know that everyone in the world right now is freaking out about the Doug Philips scandal, and to be honest, the whole thing grosses me out so much that I don’t even want to read about it. And given that I don’t even want to read about it, I’m certainly not going to pull up my socks and start writing about it. But the whole situation has given me some food for thought, and that is on the question of how to raise our daughters so that they don’t fall prey to the manipulations of that kind of man – because those kind of men are found the world over, not merely in patriarchal conservative groups. Is your daughter ever likely to encounter more than three men in the course of her life? Then she will encounter this kind of man. So how do we teach our daughters to be submissive but also strong? To be gracious but also quick to say no?

I have three daughters, all of whom are are now closer to “young lady” than “little girl,” so this isn’t a hypothetical question for me! Here are some of the things that have been bouncing around in my head on this question, in no particular order – things that are very much at the front of my mind as I watch these lovely girls grow up. Read More

Curlers (and stuff)

By rebekah | Filed under Uncategorized | Tags:

clematis

Have you ever noticed that when people self-describe they’re almost universally wrong?

Well ok, perhaps I’m being a bit pessimistic with “almost universally.” Suppose we re-phrase that into something a little less off-puttingly negative. I’m going to take another stab at it, and this time I’ll be much more encouraging and optimistic.

Have you ever noticed that when people self-describe they’re very often wrong? (I think that was much more delicately and tactfully phrased.)

I don’t mean when people say things like, “I just finished reading a book on gardening,” (which I did, coincidentally) or “I cleaned the bathroom today,”  (which I ought to have), but more when they say things like, “I’m just a really ___________ kind of person.”

This can manifest itself in anyone from the marriage counselor who’s had 4 divorces (“Seriously! I’m an expert on this! Let me offer you some life-coaching!”) down to the lovely and well-meaning woman who always brings that rather revolting casserole to church potlucks because she’s convinced that it’s her specialty. (“I just knew that everyone would be so disappointed if I didn’t bring my famous Nevada Pie with extra kidney beans!”) And then of course everyone at the potluck takes a helping because no one wants to hurt her feelings, and mothers plop a serving onto their offended childrens’ plates while shooting them That Warning Look . . . and the poor deluded woman goes home perfectly satisfied in the knowledge that her Nevada Pie is treasured and loved.

I’ll never forget the man who announced that he was the “musically gifted brother” in the congregation, Read More

Some Moralizing

By rebekah | Filed under Uncategorized | Tags:

tweezersSo here’s a little something that you didn’t actually want to know about. I stepped on a piece of glass the other week. Just a tiny little shard – I didn’t even notice it when it happened.

Yes, I know you’re gripped. Dying to find out the end of this story. “Did she get it out I wonder? Did she find the tweezers?”

Well no as a matter of fact. I kinda vaguely knew there was something in my foot but I only noticed it if I stepped on it in just the right way. I was busy. It’s Christmas. And finals week. And all that. I didn’t even have time to actually let this little glass shard bubble up into my conscious thoughts. I sort of figured I would leave it alone and it would work itself out. Plus it’s in one of those awkward corners of the foot which you can’t get a good look at, no matter how you contort yourself.

Don’t worry. I’m coming to a point. As dramatic as this all is, and as much as this is a worthy tale in its own right, I’m working up to a metaphor so bear with. Read More

Here’s hoping

By rebekah | Filed under Uncategorized | Tags:

Christmas labels 2 So anyways, I’m sick in bed today. Not too bad, merely coughing myself into an early grave is all. I have also lost my voice which is a great bonus because it makes me sound so much more pathetic than I actually feel. I have reached the point where I am communicating with my family via a series of squeaks and gestures. The whole thing is actually just comic, and I would pick this any day of the week over any form of stomach bug – even though I may at any moment sprain a rib with coughing.

Now that I have over-shared with you about that, you are no doubt wondering why on earth I bring this up. Why shout the news all over the interwebs that I am coughing? I’m just setting the context here. Seeing as I am sitting in bed rather than being productive and planning my Thanksgiving menu, I decided to make some Christmas labels. Every year around this point I’m still feeling optimistic about the whole Christmas package situation. Read More