tothehilltops | Welcome

So, apparently I'm a mod. I'm inclined to think this is a promotion in life, and I'm secretly vowing to sew a cape for the position.

I'm Kay, and chances are I know a good slice of you ladies in actual life, but others of you will be new. Now is my chance to assume an intimidating manner; the Internet is my only hope for intimidation tactics, since my actual face and general aspect tend to make people go Awww like they do around declawed kittens.

Sharon nudged me with her idea ("Hey, what do you think about a blog for quality Christian talk about sexuality?") and I clobbered her with eagerness. Chiefly this eagerness stems from two sources: 1) A sincere passion for more forthright discussion in the Church of such an influential aspect of human life, and 2) A personal history (and present) of health and joy in sexuality. In other words, I have a lot to say and no compunction about saying it.

I hear from so many young women and men that they grew up to a deafening silence about all things sexual within the Church. Exceptions exist (thank God). But overall, a topic that can't comfortably be broached in the Sunday pulpit falls by the wayside when it comes time to arrange the "older women instructing the younger" a la the epistles. We women can begin changing that among ourselves, here, just a little bit, even if none of us really qualify as "older." My guess is, we can get pretty far just reaching out a hand to one another where we're at today.

Where I'm at today---married. (Rather enamoured of marriage to this particular man.) It's been only three years, and so I still have sharp and near memories of singlehood, working and waiting, unrequited love, then engagement. Parenthood as yet remains a shrouded mystery. I'll keep you updated.

The only other things you ought to know about me, at least on initial introduction, are these:

1. I am of the stubbornly optimistic persuasion. One friend, when we were both teenagers, dubbed me Kay, Keeper of the Joy in All Things. I glory in this title.

2. Quotes tend to come out my ears, I love them so; and most of them wind up being C. S. Lewis.

So, hello; let me hear who you are!

Kay

And hello. I'm Sharon and know some of you from "real life" - and am very much forward to meeting the rest. (Over the interwebs for now, but in the future, who knows? [I sometimes like to shock people by telling them that I have been meeting people from the Internet since I was 18 and that no one has attempted to axe murder me... yet.])

Who I currently am has a great deal to do with what brings me here and why I find this community so vital. My husband and I moved as very new newlyweds to the Bay Area from the East Coast, leaving nearly the entirety of our close friends and support system behind. Besides mourning the sudden loss of opportunities to wear heels in a hilly city that requires daily walking, I also desperately missed the wisdom and presence of close friends when it came to embarking on this new adventure of marriage. Also, living in this area of California and being in academia means I rub elbows with people of a very liberal bent a great deal. While I consider myself both left-of-middle in many viewpoints and most definitely a feminist, I often find myself uneasy at the kinds of conversation that go on about marriage-as-gender-struggle that occur in these circles and feeling desirous of a more Biblically-based perspective.

So that's the somewhat selfish part of my motivation for creating this space. The greater part, however, comes from five years of deep involvement in church/women's ministry, during which time I heard again and again the longing of young women for an ethic of how to be a young Christian woman in a world where the Church is often silent on such matters. My hope with this community is that it can be one answer to this longing.

Hey, everyone!

I'm known to my good friends(and internet peoples - two groups which normally overlap quite a bit) as Angel. I know a handful of you in real life, but most of those I met online first - Charis & Tams I think are the exceptions.

Currently I'm single, and very okay with it(finally). There is a young man at my church whom I am interested in, but he's so far shown no interest and I've finally been able to honestly and completely place it in God's hands(after about a year - I can be slow to let go of things).

Other than that, I'm living with my parents and working to pay off my student loans, and volunteering at an ESL program on Tuesdays and a GED prep class on Thursdays.

I'm not sure what else to say, so I'll just end this here...

Hello Ladies,
I had to smile at the opening post to this site due to the fact that I was reading it with my feet propped up on the couch and a mug of tea in my hands. I am clearly in the right place. :-)

I was invited to this group by my dear friend (and super-mod) Kay, and I look forward to meeting and making new friends in this marvelous group.

I am a night-shift working NICU nurse and the wife of two years to a wonderful husband. I can most often be found reading, puttering around in the kitchen, or working on some new crafty project - all while drinking concerning volumes of tea.

My initial feelings about this group were admittedly a mixture of nervousness along with a sense of relief and anticipation. I grew up in a world of that "deafening silence" in my church and my family, and the resulting journey into the world of womanhood, identity, and dating relationships was a stumbling, painful process. Now as a married woman, though many of the scraped knees and bruised elbows have healed through joy, I continue to search and question and struggle with what I should grow to be as a
Godly woman.

There is such a need for such group as this - a place for women to talk, and laugh, and uplift each other openly. Bless you brazen women for cracking open this Pandora's Box!

I feel like I am sitting in the room with all of you right now, and we are about to embark on the most epic slumber party ever. EVER. And the best part is that we won't have to play truth or dare....well, at least the dare part. I will NOT eat grass again!

*ahem*

I do believe this slumber party will be a bit more mature and a lot more Godly (see above statement about grass) than slumber parties of old. Hopefully our distance will encourage even more honesty, and in a healthy, sharpening way.

Where am I? I am a graduate student in Athens, which is 50-60 miles away from the cluster of womenfolk that I used to take for granted. Thankfully Mother Internet is bringing us all together. I think I've made one friend from a purely online beginning, so I'd love to increase that number. I am single. I dated once, and through that experience I am now chock full of dating don'ts, so there are blessings in all situations.

I think that's about it. Hello again!

Hey Ladies,
I see you all are very nice with words :) I have never done the whole "get to know someone over the internet" thing. Looking forward to getting to know you all! :)

Let's see...about me. I was brought here by my lovely friend Sharon (who I miss so much!) I am currently in my fifth year of teaching elementary school. (Kindergarten this year and 1st the last four). I have been married for four and a half years and have a renewed love for my husband every day. I also have a one year old little boy. He brings me so much joy!

I think its great to have a group of woman to talk about topics that a lot of the world is afraid of. I am excited to get started! :)

You ate grass?

Is it terrible that you have now risen at least five points in my estimation?

It should also be noted that Kristi (spelling?) is one of the coolest, down-to-earth moms in the history of the universe, and she should be emulated by mothers everywhere.

Truth. Not to embarrass her or anything, but Kristi and her husband are singlehandedly putting a lot of my fears regarding parenthood to rest.

(And her son is seriously the cutest kid ever. EVER.)

When my darling friend Kay first told me about this idea, I felt a sense of panic. Talk? About sex? Gasp!

Now, let me say that I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. But I, too, was raised in the "cone of silence" the church has created regarding this topic. To complicate matters, my father recently became a pastor. As you can imagine, people have all sorts of opinions on how the preacher's daughter should behave, and they aren't always shy about sharing them.

I will turn a quarter of a century this summer. I just got engaged to the love of my life, a man with the biggest heart of gold. We've been dating for three years now and are getting married in September.

I am so excited this group has been created! It will be an invaluable help. :)

Will you be using sequins on your cape? :)

Also, she totally owns the dance floor, in addition to being one of the coolest people I've met and having an adorable son...

Hey! A fellow PK! It is a special world of weirdness all its own, certainly. Glad to meet you :-)

Oh, naturally! But only in a tasteful leaf-and-vine pattern along the bottom hem.

Love that last line. :-) Hurrah, more Sarah in my life!

Welcome, Kathryn! I recognize the mark of a kindred spirit in your grammarian ways, even though I cannot quite follow you into the intricacies of higher math (though I do have a sneaking interest in that Calculus proof you mention, and if I can't make it out, my math genius father should be able to explain it to me).

Also, I'm psyched to make the acquaintance of a Philadelphian! My husband and I will be moving there to work at Esperanza Health Care Center in December 2011. So, perhaps I'll be picking your brain for places to visit and other such local wisdom!

I would expect nothing less. :)

Hooray! Another PK! A pleasure to meet you too :)

Five points in awesome? This is the opposite of terrible.

I have eaten leaves as well, but I believe that was through my own volition. We are going to end the conversation about my culinary curiosities here, because you don't want to know how far the rabbit hole goes :P

Kath, I think we are up to about seven physical weeks together....and Skype totally counts! So maybe eight weeks.

Another PK in the mix. Add in being a PW (pastor's wife) and people REALLY don't want to talk to/with you about sex! :)

Hahaha! I can imagine! My mom is also a PK (I'm surrounded!) and she NEVER wanted to be a pastor's wife. My dad was a carpenter. He never wanted to be a pastor. Ain't God funny? :)

Good heavens. I never said my name. It's Melanie, but most people call me Mel. I also answer to Babe and Hey You. :)

Melanie!

I believe we chatted once or twice, many, many years ago. I believe I followed you on ff.net, or something like that. I have the vaguest of memories of a LotR fanfiction I believe you wrote... I was known as Kara Angelle on ff.net back in the day.

Hello there :D I was putting off posting until I figured out something brilliant to say...but I give up (a dim glow will have to do).

I'm Charis, and I've been brought here by Sharon and Kay both. I've known some of you for a long time (either in person or online), and some of you I met at Sharon's wedding, and everyone else I look forward to getting acquainted with!

Let's see...I live in Texas, where I have an uninteresting office job that doesn't make any use of my degree in English (when people ask 'what do you do?' I tell them that I am paid to sit at a desk and make small movements with my hand. And this is completely true). I'm almost 25 (good grief), and I am single. I have always been single--if at any point someone showed some interest in me, I was (and continue to be) entirely oblivious. For a long time this really bothered me. I am over it now, and I'm grateful to be able to say that and mean it. It helps that I've never felt a lasting attraction towards anyone, I suppose (unless fictional men count).

I don't know that I was raised in a cone of silence concerning sexuality--my mom was a nurse, so she tended to be matter-of-fact about bodily functions, and the subject of purity was quite a big thing in our homeschooling community, but the discussion stopped short of what I needed. There isn't a lot of discussion about how to deal with sexuality as a single woman (and especially a woman prepared for the possibility of being single for a long time). After all, being a spinster doesn't make a person asexual.

There was an assumption (or seemed to me to be an assumption) in the communities and churches that I grew up in that marriage is the goal for young women. The lesson being drummed into girls in youth group was always that they needed to save themselves for their future husband, which assumes that there will BE a future husband. It's taken me seven years to realize how wrong this is, because what if there is no future husband? Does that negate the value of chastity? I don't think so, because a woman's chastity is something between her and God, not between her and a hypothetical man. This was an important thing for me to realize--that being single doesn't mean there is something wrong with me, and that being single isn't a problem. It's just where God has be right now, and he may keep me here, or he may move me to another stage of life that involves a relationship, but either way my focus should be on serving God where I am, as I am. (Understanding this and putting it into practice are very different).

In the interest of full disclosure (now that I have made a big deal about being single and how it is totally fine), sometime after March I have made a deal with myself to give online dating an official try. I wrote about it on my LJ, but that post is friends-locked so I'll replicate a bit of it here: "The point is that I think I'm perfectly capable of being a content, satisfied, and productive individual as a single woman, and I don't buy into the idea that I need another person to be complete, or to serve God, or to be truly happy, but I also don't want to not try something just because I have preconditioned myself to fail* or because I'm afraid or rejection or blah blah blah excuses blah blah. I also don't want to be so wrapped up in my own I-don't-need-a-relationship speech that I fail to realize that while I might not need something (or think I need it) I may still benefit from it and I should be open to possibilities. And if I'm meant to be single, then at the end of this experiment I will still be single, and still be content about it. And if I'm meant to be in a relationship and God has been waiting for me to open my heart to the idea, then I'll have the chance to find out."

...I'm in danger of getting ranty, so I'll just move along. Other things about me that aren't long ramblings! I like to make things, be it with knitting or sewing or painting or baking, and as part of that I like to write. I love to read, of course, and daydream about extravagant parties and organized craft rooms.

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