I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know Valerie online. I mean, as if it wasn’t weird enough that she is the musical the mom of four boys, going back to school for ministry in her thirties (WHOA!), she actually grew up less than an hour from where I live! So we really could be long-lost relatives. 🙂 Here’s her take on healthy–and less-than-healthy–relationships.

My name is Valerie, and I have been married for 11 years to a wonderful man named Kyle. I was 20 and my husband was 22 when we got married. We met when I was 18 and he was 20, and then went our separate ways to different universities across the country from one another. During that time we really got to know one another over the phone, spending hours just talking and laughing about our daily events. We have never had a hierarchal relationship, mostly because my husband has never felt the need to control me. This might sound like a small thing, but I feel that most men, who hope for a hierarchal relationship, tend to want control in the relationship.

We have always made our decisions together, as one unit rather than separate entities. It was something I never really questioned or thought was particularly special, until I became friends with a couple who is completely based on the hierarchal structure. The biggest benefit for me is that I feel like I am one with my spouse, that my opinions, thoughts, feelings, and wants are valid. The goals that I have for my life are more than being a mother, more than having a career, and more than being Kyle’s spouse. My goal, for my life, is to follow Christ with abandoned, unhindered love. The root of our relationship is that we hold this goal at heart for one another, regardless of who is in control at any specific time. We mutually know that our relationships with God come before our relationship with one another.

Many people, who try to “prove” a biblical basis for a hierarchal relationship, tend to interpret the Bible incorrectly. My first response to their argument would be that they need to start reading the Bible looking for what God is saying in it, rather than for whatever argument they are looking to be made right in. When we read the Bible attempting to prove our own point while putting others down, we are taking God’s word and using it to verbally abuse another person. Would Christ allow this? Did He ever do this in His lifetime?

Also, I can point out many instances in the Bible where families were made up of all sorts of various components, with many of them never looking like the nuclear family that is considered the ideal for the hierarchal relationship. Where in the Bible does it state that the only family God recognizes is the nuclear family? I have never read it, and we need to stop shoving this down people’s throats, because it’s just not true.

The one thing I would tell my friend who is in a hierarchal relationship, is what kind of unhealthy, ungodly characteristics are you passing on to your children? The control that her husband has over her life is beyond anything I could ever imagine, to the point that she only wears certain clothes, certain hair styles, and certain make-up for him. Her entire life revolves around his needs, his wants, and his desires. She is not allowed to have any of these things for her own, and he gets incredibly jealous over things that are not normal. Why would God create her as the person she is, with a will and spirit all her own, only for it to be tempered by squelching those God-given desires for her spouse? If there is only one way to serve God in our relationships, then why did God create people so differently? God created us to be in unity with our spouses, looking at the original meaning of the word that is often translated into help meet, means two people coming together on equal ground, living and sharing life together as one unit, neither being higher than the other.

Valerie White is a stay-at-home mom to four little boys, a full-time Christian Ministry student and Northwest Nazarene University, and a pastors wife. She also leads worship full time at Hermiston Church of the Nazarene. She enjoys reading, writing, singing and above all worshiping Christ. Check out her blog at http://valerielynnw.blogspot.com/ to read her thoughts on God, Family and Community. 

Next week’s Equally Yoked post is from Valerie White.

Want to contribute to the Equally Yoked series? Email Jenny at jennyraearmstrong@gmail.com.

Next week’s Equally Yoked post is from Ryan Stauffer.