What Is Wrong With Me???

***WARNING!!!*** This post contains adult topics...

I know this refrain is getting old. It's getting old for me, too. I wish it would stop. All go away. I get tired of it. Tired of the questioning. Tired of the wondering, the wanting to know the WHY. The forbidden fruit, I guess.

I'm tired of feeling like a freak. Of being different. Of wondering why I am the way I am and no one else is this way. Tired of waiting for someone who actually understands or GETS me.

And today I possible made a major fool of myself in a desperate attempt to find answers. Only when I am at my breaking points do I let my guard down and get real with people. And I always regret it. Only when I can't take it anymore will you see me shed a tear in your presence.

Unfortunately, since having Pumpkin it seems I am always vulnerable. Always on the verge of tears and losing it. Always at the bottom of the pit.

I don't understand God. I don't understand the Bible. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do, who I'm supposed to be, how I'm supposed to act, what I'm supposed to pass on to my own children.

I don't know why I have a HUGE guilt complex. But I do. I have the need, or the desire...the DRIVE to confess all my deepest darkest sins and secrets to the public, so they know who I REALLY am. It doesn't matter that God knows...I feel like a deceiver. It's not like the sins I have hidden haven't been done before. They aren't even bad on a scale of the worst. But they are unknown, and that bothers me.

I don't know why I have to be good all the time. I like to know what the "right" thing is so I can do it, and do it perfectly. I know when I have failed, and if I want to, I will not fail.

I don't know why I question everything now. Why I can't seem to accept that anything is okay, that what I feel in my heart truly IS the way God wants me to do things. Why I can't shut off the voices in my head, on the computer, in the books, on the T.V., in the magazine, at the church. The voices that each have a convincing reason that I am wrong regardless of the choice I make. Each can use scripture or studies showing the impact if I am wrong.

Why can't I read scripture and feel like it speaks to ME??? Why is it I only find more questions, nagging, relentless questions about the God I serve and what He expects from me? What am I doing wrong that makes it so I can't hear His voice louder than the others?

And if I shut them all out...so that perhaps I hear the still small voice, I am afraid He won't be there. Or if I DO think I hear...then when I encounter a voice, immediately they tell me that I am way off. Again.

I have been reading through the Bible with our church, chronologically, and it's very difficult for me so far. I see why people think that the stories are myth because, frankly, it's hard to know how to know these things REALLY happened. I am currently reading the fodder for those who believe God is harsh, unloving, and vengeful. Leviticus.

If there's another book that is as harsh as this, I don't look forward to it. I've read the Bible before, but not really dove into it, searching for answers. Thank goodness I already believe, shaken though I feel right now, because this would make me walk away for good, thank you very much.

Why did God kill Aaron's sons? Why was the punishment for certain sins death, and other similar sins simply ex-comunication? Why were women regarded as more unclean than men (male births made women unclean for 7 days, female births for 14 ? ) I don't understand. I want to know WHY?

Why is it that if it's an attitude thing, which is what I'm told, that David, who had a repentant heart, was given TIME to repent, but not Ananias and Saphira? (spelling may be off, I'm not checking the names right now because I'm laying my heart out here, forgive me.) I don't understand. I want to know WHY?

I want to know what God planned for families. What marital love was meant to be like. Were Adam and Eve told how to make love, the secrets of their bodies? Or did they have to discover it? And was Adam such a terrific lover that he discovered her pleasures on day one, or was she like many (Christian, mostly) woman today who wait years into their marriage before they realize how they work?

Was Eve terrified of giving birth, unknowing and unsure? Did she panic as waves of pain overcame her? What, exactly, was different from the original plan of giving birth, since most other mammals give birth as we do???

Did Adam and Eve hold their child, sleep with their child, or shove it off and ignore it's cries, realizing that "it would be okay" and "it needed to learn that the world doesn't revolve around it?"

Personally, I think God DID tell Adam and Eve a few secrets about love making. Maybe I'm way off, goodness knows it seems to be that way a lot. But if He told them how to tend a garden, and what animals are, etc. WHY IN THE WORLD would he leave them to be frustrated trying (fun as it may be) to discover something that seems JUST out of their reach?

I read about Eastern women who are trained in the art of love making so they will be a pleasing wife to their future husband. They don't have sex, they are just told HOW to have sex. Maybe this is wrong. I don't know. But what I DO know is that surely they have a better time on their honeymoon than couples where the bride is so shy she leaves the lights off all night long for goodness sakes. Between the two, I'd say God would want us to ENJOY the gift of sex, not hide from it like schoolgirls.

I've read about tribal women who are in rhythm with their bodies during labor. They sway, the women around them sway, in a belly dance, in tune with nature and birth. She is calm, relaxed. She gives birth without fear, or panic. Then there's the Western way. Fear so strong we immerse ourselves in a medicine to shut out all feeling, not even aware of the power within our bodies, bringing our children from within to without. The passage of life, and we are separated from it by a needle, or a knife.

In many cultures children are a part of daily life. Not something to be separated into other beds, other rooms, into buildings for learning. They are carried to work, they aren't left with sitters. Many cultures have one bedroom houses, where families sleep together. Babies are conceived while their siblings are sleeping. In this culture, one would be crude and inappropriate to do such a thing.

So I don't know where to go. I want my daughter to embrace her sexuality. Not with other people before she's married, but with all abandon after she's married. I don't want her to go years without realizing that females can have orgasms. But how do I tell her? Am I allowed to tell her?

I found out most of what I knew from the internet while I was engaged. I didn't know about books like Kevin Leman's "Sheet Music." So I looked stuff up on the net. And I learned what I wanted to know. And I had fun discovering how it worked once I was married. Though I was also tempted and found out some before.

So I know I don't want to go too far with my daughter. But what IS too far? Does God really want us to send our children into marriage not knowing that a female can orgasm? Since let's face it, most men know that THEY can orgasm. Some women don't even know what the word MEANS before they are married. How much of a shock do we let them have?

Yes, it could be a VERY pleasant thing to be surprised in a marriage. To be innocent. But how do you balance that with enough knowledge to let them be open and expecting, instead of shocked and horrified? Our men obviously go into it ready and willing. Why shouldn't our women? Why is it wrong to teach our children HOW to have sex (I'm not sure WHEN to teach them if it's okay, I'm just asking...)? We teach them how to sew, cook, clean, fix things. But SEX? Well, that should be discussed by the couple to be only....

And that's why we have the problems we do. Couples who don't consummate the marriage two years into it still. Couples who only have sex to procreate, creating a frustration I don't even want to contemplate.

And the fact that I brought all this up at the Apples of Gold meeting today means that no one there will ever think of me the same again.

Yes, I'm open. Open minded, for that matter. And yes, I suppose I am weird. To them. To you. To whoever thinks so.

It started with gift-giving. I talked about how gifts are my love language, and somehow the fact that I gave a "Tampon Angel" as a gift to my secret sister last year came up. After laughing about a few jokes in that regard, I mentioned cloth menstrual pads. At first everyone was laughing hysterically, until they realized that I MEANT it. That *I* used cloth pads, and made my own. Of course I got looked at like I was an alien or something, because they had never heard of it.

I can't blame them. First time I heard of many of the things I do I thought they were strange things too. But I guess the reason I told them was because I keep hoping that someone will want to know WHO I AM. Who I REALLY am. What makes me different. What makes me me. And so I brought it up so they would have another piece to the picture that is me.

And they laughed. And even after I explained it, I'm not sure what they thought. But I know that now I wish I hadn't said anything. Wish I hadn't mentioned my struggle to understand the difference between right and wrong. Wish I hadn't revealed a part of me that is still very vulnerable to criticism.

But I did. It's out there, and I can't take it back. And I hope they don't think I'm a freak now.

I mentioned my struggle with trying to figure out how to justify that the Quiverfull mentality is not right, but most didn't understand what the Quiverfull mentality WAS. (For the record, I've come to the conclusion that I don't feel God anywhere implies that we are not allowed to know and use our reproductive cycle in order to PREVENT or TRY to have kids. If one trusts in God to give children when HE wants them, we are saying that He goes against the natural laws He put into the universe. He allows rape to make a baby, yet that's not His ultimate will. He knows it will happen, but it didn't happen because He wanted it to, but because He allowed nature to take it's course. The same line of reasoning is what the Christian Scientists use to allow disease to consume them, even when there is a known medical cure. If we TRULY trust God, wouldn't we all just let our kids die of something that is curable??? So goes with our fertility. God allows us to learn our cycle for a reason, I believe.)

Anyway, they told me that if I question, then I'm okay. That that means I'm searching for God's Will. But for me it's not enough, and I wish it was. I wish I could glance just ONCE through God's eyes and see the big picture from His vantage point.

I wish I could stop over analyzing everything and everyone. But when I talk to those who can't get past our Western thinking, I feel like I'm overboard. And when I talk with those who adapt to Eastern or other cultural values, I'm too strict with my faith.

So where does God fall? Why is it that the more natural, the more gentle things, the things that seem to make more sense with a loving God and with a perfect earth, are the things that Christians are least likely to do? Where is the middle ground, and how do I find it?

I DON'T want to screw up my kids. I don't. I don't want to turn them into hippies who experiment with things because we should be okay with who we are. But I also don't want them to feel like me. Trapped by unseen rules. Guilty even when innocent. I want them to be proud of who they are, who God made them to be.

But how will they know what that is if I can't even find who God made ME to be?

What is wrong with me?????????????