Dear My Twin

 Dear My Twin,    After the the weird evangelical dichotomy of a "loving" God who does terribly abusive things, the horrible, abusive misogyny is what drove me to question things.  The misogyny in the church is ... it's overwhelming. At the extreme ends, women are not only barred from any  type of leadership position, their married lives make them less than human, simultaneously removing all power from them by order of "submission," diminishing the Imagi Deo in them by defining them as "help meet" alone, removing them as co-heirs, inheritors, children of God, humans made in the image of God, and while they are powerless in marriage to even speak up (as that would be disrespecting their husband's position as the mini-Christ in the home), they are simultaneously blamed for everything that goes wrong in the marriage, even in extreme abuse, sexual, physical and marital affairs. She either wasn't being submissive enough, or not giving enough sex.  W...

 Dear My Twin,  So much has changed in the last year, it's really hard to know where to start. So I'll start with the thing that didn't change: I believe God is love. I'm not sure why this is the one thing that I can't escape, and when things were very dark and unclear, it got very hazy what "God" even meant or could mean. But even though things were really awful and hard, I couldn't escape this annoying, nagging certainty, that there was a Force in the universe, that made good, intended good, and ultimately, would bring total good to pass.  Maybe it's because I'm an optimist, at heart. But even though I was really going through difficult things, and I've endured so much abuse, survived so much trauma ... There's also so much beauty in the world.  There's you, for example. Jordan. Cats. Cats are wonderful. Sunrises. Butterflies. The ocean.  Platypuses. Those are hilarious. How can you not laugh when you think of them?! And laughter ...