Respect

The Completing Him challenge from this past Monday focused on respecting your husband.  This concept reminded me of a rather heated conversation with my husband a couple weeks ago

I respect my husband greatly. I respect that he has put off his ambitions to stay home with the girls. I respect the decisions he makes ... most of the time

See, I kinda od think of myself as a feminist ... perhaps a pseudo feminist. When it comes to the few passions I am super confident about I am all "I am woman ... hear me ROAR!"

Or some people refer to it as being stubborn ...

Back to our conversation ... One of those things that I'm stubborn about is my childhood in regards to growing up in the church. I grew up in a medium large church. We probably had about 500 member, but around 250 - 300 on Sunday morning. I also grew up in the Methodist denomanation in Alabama. My hubby grew up in the Lutheran denomination. He was also a military brat in the west and mid-wset until his Dad became a Lutheran pastor.

After we got married I read the small Catechism and talked with my pastor and the pastor of the church we attened now and confidently switched my membership over to the Lutheran church. Here in Nashville we were able to find a wonderful church with a nice sized congregation.

Birmingham though ... well that's a different situation. I think I knew 2 people who were Lutherans. Yeah, I said 2. And to make matters worse of like the 6 churches (guessing on the number) that are Lutheran they also have to LCMS Lutheran. Its like a bad statistical problem in my head.

My main worry is we will find a church that meets the denominational requirements, but has like 50 reguarlly attending members. Even worse if they are mainly older. And the youth group is super small or non exsistent.

I want my girls to have the same amazing experiences I had in my youth group growing up. We went on choir tours, mission trips, beach trips, retreats. What if this small church does not offer that? I'm worried my heart will break for my girls missing out on what they don't even know.

But I have to respect my husband. I have to trust his leadership in our family.

But maybe my main worry is what if we can't find a church? My hubby has agreed to also visit inter denominational churches. But he has standards that a church must live up to and hold by. The main one is not allowing women to preach which as you can imagine raises my feminist hackles ... but that's another post ... or two or five

I tend to want the girls to attened the larger church and have the social interactions that come from having peopel around you, and if perhaps they are taught something that goes against what we believe we can correctt that at home. Maybe that's not the right way of thinkign. I should want my kids surronded by kids who are raised the same way even if its not that many

It hurts that my girls may not be able to experience the same youth experiences that I had, but maybe this is a positive wrapped (or hidden) behind my stubborn sadness. Maybe this is really a chance for me to be involved with a growing group, or to help grow a church. Or maybe this won't happen at all and we will both be happy in a new church. Or maybe we won't even move to birmingham (no still haven't heard anything about the job yet)

But all in all I know that what I must take from this is the ability and willingness to respect my husband by putting my trust in his decisions.

This post is linked up with Shell's Pour Your Heart Out, Word-filled Wednesday, iFellowship, and the Completing Him challenge ... I'll add links and pictures in the morning when I'm on an actual computer and not this G1