Mean Mama No More

This weekend I was not the mean mommy though I wondered if I would be when Joshua asked me why I said “Oh My Gosh” in a church parking lot and reminded me not to exceed the speed limit. Instead, I listened to his voice shaking with confusion and fright for me “because God might be mad at you for using his name in vain in the church parking lot.” Most of us know that a mama’s first response is simply reflexive, responding to a child stepping out of his place. At least that’s the case with most strong black women I know. But in light of my mean mama self examination, I was extra careful with my responses to clarify for and comfort Joshua.

Before Joshua said that I used the Lord’s name in vain (right), he said that “Oh My Gosh” was cursing (not really). I re-explained that Gosh is a substitute for God, and he’s right that we shouldn’t say it because doing so is a way of calling out to God for no good reason at all. I apologized for saying “Oh My Gosh,” but Joshua continued to fret, repeating over and over what I had done and what he thought would be God’s response.

“Joshua, I said I was sorry. What else do you want me to do?”
“You can pray about it.”
“What should I pray?”
“You can ask God to help you not to say ‘Oh My Gosh’ anymore.”
“You are right, Joshua. I can pray.”

So I asked God to forgive me and help me not to say “Oh My Gosh,” which comes out at times I don’t even realize. And not realizing that I had said it was really frustrating for Joshua. If he could express himself, he’d probably want to know “How could you so freely say something that you teach me not to say?” But he didn’t have to say that. He was quite clear with his telling me that I was in the church parking lot.

Though my son conducted a lesson in humility for me, I was not the mean mama but the proud mama. He has learned and knows how to apply The 10 Commandments and is recognizing what displeases God. His 7-year-old ways may not yet be the most gracious, but we’re working on the “not what you say but how you say it.” He did pretty well this day. So on the expressway when he said, “Mama don’t forget,” his respectful way of reminding me not to speed, I said, “You’re right,” and I simply decelerated from 58 to get to the 55 limit. He knows laws and is working on the love, and in the process I truly am the proud mama.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Mean Mama

Sunday mornings have always been a test of patience for me, from when I was a little girl and my mama was satisfied to get to church in time to “hear one song and the sermon,” to me agonizing over what to wear to match my required head covering at my previous church to now having the bulk of the job of getting my three sons and me ready for church. With my mama, I wanted to rebel but couldn’t because I couldn’t make her get up on time nor could I drive. At my previous church, I wanted to rebel but I knew the spiritual cost would be too high. Now that I have autonomy over the children and me these Sunday mornings, I have been determined to get us to church on time. In doing so, I see myself as a drill sergeant. Joshua sees me as mean.

Boys Rule 2

I don’t know about you, but I get thrown off when people show up to my home unexpected. I may not be dressed right or have other plans and may say something I wouldn’t ordinarily say because these guests showed up and changed the course of my day. This happened Saturday morning. Joshua came into our bedroom and attacked his dad as he lay on the bed. After they tussled a bit, we had a little impromptu family time, an intimate party of sorts. We were feeling good. We were feeling free. And in these moments is when Joshua usually asks some deep question, but this day I asked a question. I wanted to know what Joshua liked about himself. He was struggling to give a list so to help him I asked what he liked about his dad, who he always calls his hero. The list was going good. Then Jezebel crashed our party.

Boys Rule

The following is not an excerpt from my book but continues to illustrate the concept of how the spirit of Jezebel fuels strong black woman fires.

“Boys rule. Girls don’t,” Joshua exclaimed from the other room as he was watching some commercial that showed children somehow interacting. After asking what he meant, he said, “Boys rule because they can be husbands and girls can only rule their children.” You know I was taken aback. He understood the assigned roles of husbands and wives in the home, gathered from the structure of our home, and expressed this in his 7-year-old way, but I was not impressed with his theology; I was concerned about his sexology. His domineering tone of “boys rule” hallowed my gut and made me think “He’s a little sexist in the making” and all I wanted to do was tell him all the ways that I, a “girl,” ruled beyond overseeing my children.

I wanted to tell him that I led my classrooms as a teacher, ran my department as a director, organized my team as a department coordinator, rallied my sorors and church members as committee chair for several committees and with most of these I was leading women AND men. Then I thought to explain how “only” ruling my children was the most important, exhausting and rewarding job that I ever had so now it tops the list of my daily responsibilities. But I didn’t say any of this because I recognized that Jezebel was haunting me and trying to scare me into standing up and taking my place in the eyes of my 7-year-old. She urged me to make him see that I, too, was worthy of broad-based rulership recognition in his eyes. I may have wanted him to say “Boys rule and girls do, too,” but Jezebel wanted Joshua to say “Girls rule and boys don’t.” She wanted me to displace my husband all so that my son could see another “boss” side to me (1 Timothy 2:12).

Though I am clear that my husband should be leading the home and am pleased that he’s not a tyrant, I want to listen to Jezebel. Though I have no doubt that my role is to manage the home, including being the primary manager of the children, I want to follow Jezebel’s ways. Though Joshua has acknowledged “you pastor your disciples,” I want to choose Jezebel’s words so that Joshua can see through me that “girls rule.” Besides talking to my husband about our need to be more purposeful in teaching our sons about gender equality in personhood, I kept my mouth shut with Joshua. I realized that I wouldn’t be trying to lovingly teach him about gender equality. I wanted to right the wrong of his thinking, to get him to see that girls rule too. But really it wasn’t about being right; it was about being recognized. When you want to be recognized you follow your own standards; you do what you think is necessary so that you are recognized even if it’s just in the eyes of your 7-year-old son. But when you want to be right, you follow God’s standards. You do what He told you to do no matter what anybody thinks about it. When you want to be right, you accept what God has for you and don’t seek approval from man. When you want to be right, you humble yourself and wait on God to exalt you, even in the eyes of your 7-year-old son.

So I waited, but I guess subconsciously I thought God was taking too long to exalt me. Over the weekend, I stopped waiting and went along with Jezebel, and it was not pretty. Tune in next time and I’ll tell you all about that then.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Day 17: Married Jezebels

When people see you do they get the impression that you aren’t married? When people see you, is your husband never around? If he is around, how do you sound when speaking to him? How do you sound when speaking about him? What are your actions in reference to him? These questions are for married AND single women because we are both wed to someone.

And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband (1 Corinthians 7:34).

Aside from pleasing God, a married woman’s major goal is to please her husband. For single women, the primary goal is to please the Lord. In order to do this we have to make sure that we aren’t acting unmarried and overconfident—being Jezebel—in relation to our husbands and God.

The name Jezebel means unmarried and she was Zidonian, a people group known to be over-confident and who showed no caution at all (Judges 18:7). And when you read about Jezebel, she epitomized her name. She took charge over her husband and his affairs as if she were his mother and talked to him without regard to his feelings. Does this sound like you? Do you take charge over your husband and his affairs? How about God? Do you take charge of the business God has given you without regard to HOW he would have you to do it? Do you say things like, “You know my heart God” after doing or saying what you want? You may be a Jezebel and didn’t even know it, but you can always change.

Acting unmarried while you’re married and being overconfident are unlawful acts, going against the very standard of God and God himself. When God created the provisions for marriage, Jezebel was the antithetical model. If we’re out of order we can get in order by examining ourselves for Jezebel and declaring war on this lawless part of our souls.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Day 16: You as Jezebel

She’s haunting me and I know it. I feel her breath on my neck, hear her words in my ears and see her face in my mind. Jezebel visits me time after time, trying to scare me to bring her to existence. She’s on my heels, whispering what woes will be mine if I don’t act in time. “I know you’re tired of them calling. Just call to work out an arrangement so your lights don’t get shut off,” she says. “He said he didn’t have time for devotions with the children. You better work it out so your kids won’t be spiritually weak,” she warns. And she sounds good and I picture how she looks, a trusted girlfriend, shaking her dome like a Bobble head, eyes piercing and wide and saying, “You know!” I do know because Bruhman just ain’t understanding what needs to be done, and I DO want to show him, like, uh, yesterday. Sometimes I slip and do my own thing and am quickly convicted that I just listened to Jezebel, let her in and allowed her to work in my life.

Unmasking the Jezebel Spirit by John Paul Jackson

While Jezebel has come to be a name to demean sexually manipulative women, her origin is one who manipulates circumstances that ultimately manipulate the spirit world. In history she was queen of Israel and wife of King Ahab, a weak man that allowed his wife to rule him and the kingdom. Read 1 Kings 18-19 & 21 to see how she managed her husband and their subjects by herself without his consultation or direction. Her name appears again in Revelation 2, when Jesus challenges the church for tolerating “Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.” Some scholars believe Jesus was speaking of the period to come before the Reformation when the church incorporated indulgences and the high regard of saints into its worship practices. Whatever the historical event, the spiritual implication is this: when you allow a spirit of lawlessness to rule, whether it be in your church or in your personal life, you are tolerating Jezebel.

When you allow Jezebel to reign, God promises to deal with that power and you by allowing you to go through suffering and your children to die. Is this death literal? It could be, but surely there will be spiritual degeneration for your children; having you as such a close spiritual model will inevitably cause corruption in their spiritual lives. Be it literal or figurative, why take the chance? Why allow Jezebel that type of entrance into your home and into your life? I always believe that when we know better we can do better. If you didn’t know about Jezebel, now you do and I have some more for you, too, next time. But for now, examine yourself to see if you have allowed Jezebel to exist in your life. If so, it’s time to let her go. If you keep her around, suffering is sure to come (or is in) your way.

Check out “Unmasking the Jezebel Spirit” by John Paul Jackson for a total treatment on the spirit of Jezebel.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Day 15: Don’t Call Me That!

Years ago I dated this guy who called me Jezebel. He wasn’t angry with me; he thought he was giving me a compliment.
“Miss Jezebel,” he said.
“What did you call me?”
“I said your name is Jezebel.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“People think that that name is bad, but really it’s good. She had a lot of power.”

I fell silent, trying to figure out how what I knew about this woman could ever be a good thing. I had never even read her story. I knew that she was associated with evil, and I always thought that evil was her being a whore. I definitely thought my guy believed Jezebel to be a whore, some sex goddess, because after talking about whether or not Jezebel was good or bad he started stroking my cheeks and hair, and I just stared in the distance. I didn’t feel empowered. I felt like a whore, and no amount of caressing could undo what the power of that name had done to me. Names are important and we need to know their meanings so we can decide whether to accept or reject them.

Jezebel has come to be associated with being promiscuous, but her origin is the biblical queen and wife of King Ahab in the Bible. She didn’t use sex but her own initiative to control her husband’s affairs. I should have been upset that my “friend” called me Jezebel not because she was a whore but because she was disrespectful. Unfortunately, any display of strength may have people calling black women Jezebel or any of the following names that we would probably reject, but when we consider the characteristics we may find that the terms—though stereotypes—may fit us:
Aunt Jemima, sometimes known as mammy, is depicted as a large, asexual woman who cares for everyone more than she does herself and to her detriment. Her job is usually in the service industry, cooking, cleaning or taking care of children.
Sapphire is a sharp-tongued, quick-witted woman who usually hurls insults at the man in her life. Her name comes from the wife in the Amos and Andy radio and television series who regularly put her husband, Kingfish, down.

Media executives created these stereotypes to control the black race. Some of us perpetuate these stereotypes to take control of our situations and others. As a result, we don’t recognize what we are causing to happen in the spiritual realm. As physical and spiritual beings what we do affects what happens in the physical and spiritual worlds. This is why we have to recognize when we are being strong outside of God’s parameters. We can’t just engage in behavior that meets our end goal and then proudly proclaim “I’m a strong black woman” or have others calling us a Jezebel or Sapphire. Surely, we are effectuating power but more than we could probably imagine or ever want to. Look for more about the spiritual effects of our behavior in upcoming posts.

Copyright 2010 by Rhonda J. Smith

Day 14: Strong’s in the Bones?

Some years ago I read a book that seemed to suggest that the strong black woman was inevitable because black women have always had to take the lead, starting in West Africa. In The Black Woman, edited by La Frances Rodgers-Rose, the editor says

Day 12: I Remember Her

On this Memorial Day, we are duly bound to remember our military, past and present, who have given their lives for our freedom. As a Christian, I am constrained to remember those whose faith fanned their fights, fueled my faith and have encouraged my righteous fights. As I continue to look at the history of the strong black woman, I dedicate the following poem to the memory of such a woman:

Day 11: One of Those Days

I kept hearing another tune about her, one that would prompt me to compose a poem but the rhythm was stilted; it just wouldn’t come. There would be ebbs and flows and then I had to let go because the poem about the strong black woman just wouldn’t come. I was examining her history, seeing how she came to be, even be me, but the words wouldn’t come. Maybe they stayed away because they didn’t want to add to my already crowded day. As I kept inviting them in, their refusal helped me to see that my day is what I should share. Yeah, it’s been one of those days.