Tuesday, April 28, 2015

The Sin of Picking Up your Purse

Since my last post I feel like I can open more about my past little by little. Now to clarify, my past is not this soap opera full of drama and secrets and each turn there is new big reveal! Nothing worthy of Dateline or even much to publish a book. But enough that is effected me and how I grew up.

I grew up homeschooled. This part of my past was wonderful because it gave me opportunities that not many kids have. Because of it I am very close with my parents and siblings. However, through homeschooling my family and I were exposed to this tiny pocket of Ultra Conservative/Super Religious Christians.

I don't want to talk bad about these people. I will only share what had been to me and to those to me. This not to be a bash fest but to share what happens and the scars things and situation like these can leave.

This group was about 2 steps away from being a cult, in my own words. They were small and if didn't conform they considered you on best case "troubled Christian," but often they would say things like, "Are you truly saved?" This would be said if you did something that they did not approve of. And though they were small, they held a lot authority through out homeschool groups and local churches, which is why what they said about seemed so powerful.

Those simple words of "Are you truly saved?"  brought on sleepless nights were I begged and talked to God to save me. Was I truly saved? Was this action they deemed a "sin" was the one thing keeping me from an ever lasting relationship from Christ?

Often these "sins" were not even sins. They were often minor issues this group had that they deemed wrong in God's eyes. Things like a girl's modesty. Now modesty is important and is mentioned in the Bible, but we are extreme here. Huge debates if a girl should be allowed to wear short or not, some extreme cases, whether she should be allowed pants or not. If she wore pants, could she be trying to look like a "man" and if so that was bad, so should only be allowed to wear dresses.

Being a well endowed girl I struggled with shirts and cleavage. I don't walk around in plunging necklines, just regular modest  blouses and t-shirts. But oh I faced the looks, the shaking of the heads, and mothers who were ready to talk to mine. My crime? I stooped down to pick up my purse. The action of stooping would sometimes cause my neck line to come forward and you may have been able to catch a glimpse of cleavage. Which in turn could lead young mean astray! How could I do that!?! Well to fix my problem and all other young well endowed girls, needing to pick up purses, we were instructed to first keep our purse beside us or in our laps to avoid "stooping". If that was not possible, we were told to bend at our knees, keeping on hand over our necklines and tilt to the side an pick up our purse. This was awkward and somewhat painful, but at least we were doing the right thing. We were even doing more of the "right" thing by holding every single young girl accountable about her neckline and "stooping". And if! oh if you dare decided this "stooping" thing was ok! Well out came, "What you are doing is wrong. Are you truly saved?"

The attack at my faith. Because I dared to not properly stoop for my purse, was I truly saved? Was God really in my heart, because I was pretty much next to dirt because I had large breasts, and if I bent to pick something up, MAYBE you could have gotten a glimpse of my cleavage.

As goofy as this sounds, I did face it. My sister did. My mother did and every woman who had large breasts were pretty much drilled to make sure they never showed their breasts. Wear sweaters, higher necklines, more scarves around the neck, because your job was to make sure someone else didn't sin. And though they wouldn't never admit it, they made us feel like our large breasts were something to be ashamed of. Large breast gave a woman curves, if she was pretty and curvy she better hide that because that my might attract a guy!

And the poor breast feeding mothers! You had too hide feeding your baby because heaven forbid you break their rules of modest.

And if you dared decided different, your faith was attacked. The constant attack at your faith for other fellow believers over something so mundane as simply picking up your purse.

It wasn't until I reached college I finally started breaking free from all the silly rules. Looking back it was so funny and sad when I went to pick up my back pack off the floors at the end of class. I thought I was such a rebel picking up my back pack like every normal person, like how Jesus picked up something, how Mary Magdalene, Ruth, Ester, or anyone would have picked something up. How could

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