I don't care

Here I am writing a blog post reflecting on a previous blog post. Sigh. What kind of a navel gazer does this make me?

The post I am referring to is here (Why I am a Complementarian...), in which I tell of an oath I took before God, and how I broke it. As soon as I published that post I almost chickened out and took it down. Now people know I’m a horrible person. They must think I’m not fit to be a mother.

Or they’ll say I’m being too hard on myself, and ridiculous: chill out girl! It was a different country, a different situation from the one you grew up in. You did what other expats said you should do. Sentiments which I know are mercy and kindness and sweet intentions, but have no power to expunge the guilt I have felt, and only invalidate the experience.

I have to confess, I procrastinated on that post for as long as I possibly could. I kept trying to write other posts, and kept finding that I couldn’t until I’d written That One. And That One was just too scary to write. So I ignored the nagging feeling that essential things were being left unsaid, until there really was nothing more I could say without saying That.

You see, the story I told about a simple orange juice stand and a solemn vow involved the confession of the very darkest point in my memory. Nothing else has the power to fill me with more shame. I drank that roadside orange juice despite my better judgment. I should have known better. I did know better. I had lived in Africa all my childhood; I remember my parents teaching us to refuse any un-bottled drinks whenever we went visiting in the village, or even to a restaurant. I recall a time they wouldn’t let us buy sealed freezies on the road because they might have been made with questionable water in a questionable facility. But hard on the heels of the thought, “That might be unsanitary,” came the thoughts, “It’s probably fine since all the other westerners here talk about having it,” “I am SO thirsty, I NEED that o.j.!” and “The poor roadside-orange-juice-boy will be offended if I back out now.”

So I drank it. And what do you know, 48 hours later I’m sweating and shivering and crying because I could have killed my baby with one drink of that delicious orange juice.

I don’t write this to defend myself to you. To tell the truth, I don’t care what anyone thinks anymore. Don’t get me wrong dear reader, I do care what you think--and that’s the reason I write. But at another level, actually I don’t.

I know the One who knows me best, and He has told me it’s all okay. God is gracious. He gave me my lily-girl, whole and perfect, a grace-gift and every day a reminder of how He sees me. And you need to know that no matter what you’ve done or how much shame or guilt you feel, He can see you the same way. He can, and He will.

So despite my fear, I published the story, both because I love you, dear reader, and because I don’t care what you think.