HAPPY BANDIVERSARY!!!!...and the next installment

• Today marks exactly one year since I went in to have the Lap-Band surgery performed.
• It's been quite a year, let me tell you.  It's been fun, its been frustrating, its been educational, and it's been well worth it.
• In a year I have lost a total of 92 lbs. I still have a long way to go, but being 92 lbs lighter has made a world of difference.
• Here are a few things to consider about my life when I was 92 lbs heavier:
• I would not walk from the Capitol to Yia Yia's pizza (which is about 5 blocks away) because it was too far and I would be exhausted when I got there.
  
• I used to be able to eat a full 3 course meal, and still be able to help someone finish their dessert.
• I was on 2 medications for high blood pressure and now I'm only on one (and I'm on that one because my doctor says it's just good for my heart).
• I would take the elevator to the second floor of the capitol to go get the mail, and then I would take it back down.
• I used to buy two plane seats, so I would beat the airline to the punch in-case they wanted to charge me for a second one because I was over-sized.
  
• I feel like I can do many things that I never thought possible now.  I walk all over the place. I go to the farmers market. I walk all over downtown. I've even walked to get groceries. I'm stronger, healthier and feel like God has just provided this wonderful tool to free me from my fat...which will ultimately free me to live better for Him.
• It's definitely had it's down-sides and frustrations for me. I recently had to go in to have my band slightly "deflated" because I went for 5 days basically without eating because it was too tight. These things happen, but I don't regret my decision to have surgery for a moment.
• SO YAY! Thank you for all your support and love. Thank you for listening to me talk about this stupid thing in me all the time. Like I said, it's been a learning experience and I am thankful that I have all of you to help me process through all of this.
• And my mommy sent me flowers in celebration of my Bandiversary
  

• Totally changing the subject here: I am almost finished with Jesus for President and it's rocking my world.
• The more I read it, the less satisfied I am to just keep living the way I do. I realize more and more how wasteful I am, what an over-consumer I am, and how little I actually live like Jesus would.
• This book is also making me painfully aware that the world has nothing for me.
• As a girl that was so heavily involved in politics, I honestly believed (for a while) that if we just got enough believers in government that we could make a difference in the world. After working in that environment for so long, I now understand that there is no hope in our government. There is only hope in our King Jesus and living within His Kingdom.
• I challenge you to read and wrestle through this book before the election. You may totally disagree with the authors, but at least they will challenge you to think deeply about the importance of where we place our allegiance.

• And Finally, I will try to do the next installment of my blog about women as pithily as possible.
• One thing I have had to come to terms with, since becoming a believer, is the issue of how women are treated in our culture.
• Now the reasons that feminism or women's rights as we know them in the United States started were quite compelling.
• Women were being treated as slaves, not allowed to vote to be represented, many not allowed to go to school or hold a job. Many were forced into marriage and child-bearing. Many lived in situations where their husband was unfaithful, physically, sexually, and verbally abusive, and they had no recourse.
• I am so thankful for the women who laid the ground work, made the sacrifice, and took the punishment so that I could be educated, hold a job, and choose if/who I wanted to marry and if I wanted to have children.
• I do feel, however, that as feminism evolved through the years, it went from fighting for necessary rights of women to ostracizing women who did not desire to fully utilize those rights.
• As the women's movement progressed, many women started to argue that there was no need for men in the world. Some even tried to push science to prove there was no need for men.
• Other women started arguing that she was able to do whatever she wanted with her body, as a free, educated woman (that included having abortions, sleeping with as many men as she wanted, and dressing however she pleased).
• Still other women would verbally attack, write books about and belittle women who made the choice to stay home to raise their children and submit to their husband's leadership. (Ironically attacking them for choosing one of the very rights they fought for). They argued that they fought so hard to get women the right to be educated and hold jobs, that for a woman to choose to by-pass college and skip climbing the corporate ladder is a slap in the face all women everywhere.
  
• This is where I feel the feminist movement shifted from protecting women from the tyranny of men, to harming women by de-valuing them.

• So allow me to redefine feminism's purpose and goals, so you can understand how I believe women should be treated in our culture.
• I believe at the heart of feminism is the need to protect women. I'm not saying who's doing the protecting here, it could be men, it could be the government, it could be other women, it could be society.
• From what do women need protection?:
  
• The tyranny of a man thinking he is empowered to control a woman, particularly men who use the Bible as their basis for controlling women. (I can do a whole post on what the Bible actually says on this issue, but I'll sum it up: He is to lay down his life for her!)
• Physical, sexual, and verbal abuse and violence (rape, beating, manipulation, intimidation, etc.)
• Men that sexually harass, joke about sex around women, or who make demeaning comments about women's appearance.
  
• Media that devalue women and communicate a message of worthlessness to women (Rap music that portrays women as sex objects, advertising that does the same thing, magazines that airbrush women and tell you to look like them, etc.)
• Women who judge other women for choosing to stay at home to raise a family.
• Women who judge other women for having a career or choosing to never marry or become a mother.
• I think when you get to the core of the purpose of feminism it's to protect and value women as the precious creatures that God sees them as.
• I was recently in a situation where some Christian men felt comfortable joking about sexual things around me, even though I objected. They also made jokes about finding "simple" women...blah, blah, blah. The details here are not important. What is important is what they chose to communicate to me as a sister in Christ. They basically said it is ok to treat women with disrespect, that I wasn't valuable enough to be protected from this rude talk, and that women have more value to them if they just do what they want sexually. I was immensely hurt by that. (one of the guys did apologize later for that)
  
• No wonder so many girls wind up pregnant as teenagers. They  have been told they are most valuable if they show alot of skin, stay skinny and hairless, and have sex. Women are just as much to blame for this as men are, because girls pressure each other to wear the right clothes to fit in, and have a boyfriend, and to "do whatever they want with their bodies, it's their right".
• I could go on and on here. I will choose to stop because this is getting long.
• Allow me to sum up my thoughts here:
• If our culture (particularly the Christian culture) would treat and view women as God does, there would be no need for feminist movements, because women would be loved, greatly valued, and cared for!