[Jessica Connell can be described as a God-seeking, recovering feminist who posts regularly at Making Home. She is happily married and is the homeschooling mother of three boys and a girl. You will learn much more about her heart as you read the following letter written for her daughter, Maranatha, to read in the future. — David Kotter]

Dearest Maranatha,

Being a wife and mommy — there is NOTHING like it!

I'm no expert. I've been a wife for almost 8 years and a mom for almost 6, but I'm telling you, WHAT an adventure! This silly "modern" world will tell you that 'you can do anything a man can do' — and to some degree, they've made it so that that's true (although men still have the corner on being daddies!). :-) But here's what they don't tell you: you can do some things, Maranatha, that NO man can do.

If God allows it, you can carry a baby inside your very own skin, feeling his or her little feet and fists and knees draw circles on the inside of your belly. You can lay in bed and marvel at this precious child inside of you in a way that no man will ever know. You can nurse a little one, and know the joy of being used by God to nurture and sustain the life of a darling little human, created by God in His image.

Oh, and there are so many things God teaches us through these roles of wife and mother.

1. These roles connect us to God. •When you've literally given up your name and identity to submit and be a helper for the husband God gives you, what a picture that is of how we should be all the more submissive to and identified with Christ! •When you've poured out every drop of energy, sleep, breastmilk, love and attention that you possess for a little person who (at 3-4 weeks old) still doesn't even smile at you, you have a sense of how much God gives us, though we do absolutely nothing for Him. •When your child is sick or in danger, you begin to comprehend how DEEPLY God loves us. •When you have a second child, you begin to understand how God can love each of us SO intensely, though we are all so different from one another.

2. These roles connect us to Jesus' birth and life. •How sweet it is to have a baby growing inside of you and reflect on what Mary must have felt and dreamed for the baby Jesus in her womb. •How amazing to consider that this young Hebrew girl didn't have babycenter.com or What to Expect When You're Expecting or parenting classes at the hospital, and yet, God gave her a cousin to assist through the labor and delivery of John the Baptist, so that she (a virgin) might be ready for this pain and work of bringing a baby into the world. •How sweet to nurse my babies, inspecting each hair swirl and toe and gazing into their eyes, and try to identify what Mary must've felt as she did these same things, knowing that THOSE hair swirls, toes, and eyes were formed, NOT by two humans' intercourse, but by GOD! •And I don't yet have a 33 year-old son, but I imagine I will one day be able to reflect all the more on Christ's death by considering Mary's anguish as a mother at the cross.

3. These roles connect us to the Word of God. As a wife and mother, we are so connected to these stories of the women of the Bible, and can far better understand so much of the Word of God as we grow as women. •Hannah's longing for a child, •Sarai's quickness to "fix" the problem of not having a son, followed by her rage and jealousy towards Hagar, •Hagar's sorrow for Ishmael, when she thought they would die in the desert, •Rebekah's nature of trickery and manipulation on behalf of her son (your love for your children — if you don't submit that to God — can cause sin in your life!), •Rachel's intense jealousy and hatred of her own sister, all over children and jealousy (you'll see when you get to be a mommy one day-- comparisons KILL!), •Song of Solomon — what a wonder it is to love a husband and be able to draw insight from the Word about human and divine love, •Verses that compare God to a mother caring for children or nursing her baby.

Precious one, there is so much this world wants to 'teach' you, and there will be so many things that will vie for your heart and mind, but I would urge you with all of my heart and mind to seek out the ways of God instead.

Instead of trying to be like a man, be the whole and complete woman that GOD MADE YOU to be! And Maranatha, that may or may not include being a wife. It may or may not include having biological children. It may or may not include breastfeeding. These things are all precious gifts from God, and they are indeed what women are designed for.

But, baby girl, whatever God crafts you for, do it with ALL your heart and ALL YOUR MIGHT, as a woman who longs to better know and please God through your experiences in this sinful (but still beautifully created) world.

Don't buy the lies that your worth is found in "breaking down barriers" of gender. Trust the way God designed you and let HIM direct your path. Oh how I love you, precious one. I can't wait to see what God will do with you in your life.

All My Love,
Mommy

P.S. There are many woman who have been faithful in their service for Jesus Christ who have not known what it is to be a wife and/or mother. And yet they were and are gloriously designed by God and used for HIS purposes. It is not these roles which I seek to praise, but GOD! His designs and purposes for us are perfect, whatever they do or don't include. I praise Him for His design of women, married and single alike. He has wonderfully made us!

But I share all of this as a caution for you: don't listen to the world and its goals for your life. Seek God and HE WILL make your path straight, darling girl. He is faithful; the world is fickle. TRUST HIM!

*******

And I pray God's blessings will rest on you, as a woman, wherever God has you on this path of womanhood. His plans for us are amazing and we will do well to trust HIM no matter where it leads.

I am so thankful that God has given us an Old and New Testament that points us in a clear direction regarding how our churches should run. From the Levite priests to the New Testament apostles and early church elders, God has been establishing for us a pattern of sacrificial, godly, and bold leadership from men patterned after Jesus Christ.

However, what would you think if next Sunday after the benediction at your local church, there were a man and a woman standing together to greet church-goers and offer prayer and counsel? This is not uncommon, and we see it quite often with pastors and their wives.

But imagine if this man and woman were married to other people. And they weren't a husband and a wife, rather they were a co-pastor team leading the congregation together while their spouses sat in the pews. Unfortunately, this is not a hypothetical scenario, because it is becoming increasingly common in some denominations to see male/female pastoral teams serving together. Instead of reviewing the theological arguments for godly, male leadership in the church and home, I think it would be helpful to look at the practical outworking about what it means for a church to have co-pastors of the opposite sex.

Consider the pastoral team of your local church: What would happen if on the next out-of-town retreat they took a new female pastor along? Suddenly there would be a new dynamic. There would be a host of wives (and a husband) left behind with the thought that their husband (or wife) is on a retreat, wrestling through tough issues with another person's spouse. Or what if your pastoral team decided to go to the next national pastor's conference? In that case, the idea of fitting as many pastors into a room as financially and ethically possible would become complex.

Or consider a co-pastor team. The pastorate carries many burdens and weighty issues. If shared with a member of the opposite sex, who is not a spouse, it could bring an unhealthy closeness that should only be protected within the bounds of marriage. When a man and a woman as co-pastors debrief after a hard session counseling a church member, they are left alone to share together the tough emotions and triumphs of personal ministry. This opens the door to a world of practical issues with regards to husbands and wives.

The New Testament commands for church government eliminate all sorts of complexities. It eradicates an avenue for questions in the minds of spouses. Suddenly pastoral accountability isn't nearly as awkward when one doesn't need to share temptations and sin issues with someone of the opposite sex.

God has always had our best interest in mind. No matter how hard we try to ignore or improve on his design, it is never a helpful scenario when men and women serve in such a close personal relationship as co-pastoring. But regardless of the "unhelpful" nature of it, Scripture simply doesn't allow for it. It is on this basis, and this basis alone, that we stand. As we look to God's Word to direct us, we are reminded that these commands are for our good, and for his glory.

Jennifer Jack met Andrew Mireles when she was 16 years old and soon married him, but wondered about his bizarre behavior in the bedroom throughout their seven years together.

After the couple divorced, Jennifer Jack learned the stunning truth about her ex-husband while flipping through an old yearbook; she found a photo of her former spouse as a female. Soon, her former husband's shocking secret came to light: born a female, Mireles underwent a surgical procedure to alter her gender and legally changed her name from Phyllis to Andrew.

A Texas judge earlier this month ruled in favor of Jack's petition to have the marriage annulled on grounds that she did not know that her ex-husband was a woman. News reports quote Mireles as insisting that Jack knew of his past, but she contends that her husband kept it a secret, telling her that they would be unable to have biological children because he had a vasectomy.

Perhaps the saddest factor here is that Jack and Mireles have two children — one fathered by another man before the marriage and another conceived by artificial insemination. Jack and Mireles are locked in a custody battle for the children.

While this might well serve as "Exhibit A" as an illustration of the dangerous outworking of the push within culture toward gender self-definition (or more accurately, redefinition), we as Christians should take no merriment over this mind-boggling situation. Instead, let us be thankful that God spoken and has provided clear guidelines on the way those created in His image are to function:

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Gen 1:27)

This is eternal, transcendent wisdom that, if followed faithfully, will never create an instance such as the one unfolding in Houston, Texas. But the good news is that this very Gospel also provides the life-giving antidote that will bring the light of grace to bear on such a dark, sin beleagured circumstance.

Let us pray for the children of this couple and for both Jack and Mireles that the Gospel of God's redeeming love in Jesus Christ will bring eternal healing to them all.

We welcome the newest complementarian on the CBMW team!

Congratulations to Barak and Heather on the birth of Judah.

Because human egg cells are difficult, costly, and risky to harvest from a woman's ovaries, scientists have been wanting to know whether animal eggs may serve just as well.

A research team at Shanghai Second Medical University has created hybrid embryos that contain a mix of DNA from both humans and rabbits. Cells from the foreskins of two 5 year old boys and two men were fused with rabbit eggs from which the majority of rabbit DNA had been removed. More than 100 of those new entities grew into early part-human, part-rabbit embryos before they were destroyed for stem cell research. Nevertheless, scientists wondered what, exactly, such a creature would be if it were transferred to a human or animal womb to develop to term.

Douglas Melton, a Harvard University cell biologist and cloning expert, noted that although this is the first creation of a human "Chimeric" embryo - a reference to the fabulist Chimera of Greek mythology, which had a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail - it is not the first time scientists have blended human cells in the lab animals. Some mice, for example have been endowed with human brain cells for research purposes.

The British Parliament this week is debating a draft Human Fertility and Embryology bill which would allow scientists to create three different types of human/animal hybrid embryos. In addition, the bill would allow research into possibilities such as making sperm from bone marrow that might mean women could become "fathers."

The Catholic bishops of England and Wales are opposed to the creation of such hybrid humans.  But if the new laws allow them to be created, then they mercifully suggest that the genetic mothers of "Chimeras" should be able to raise them as their own children if they wished. "Such a woman is the genetic mother, or partial mother, of the embryo; should she have a change of heart and wish to carry her child to term, she should not be prevented from doing so." "At the very least, embryos with a preponderance of human genes should be assumed to be embryonic human beings, and should be treated accordingly."

Now is the time to look away from the scientific research of what presently is or soon will be possible, and consider from the Word of God what is morally permissible. We are presented with a plethora of moral concerns with these developments, but at Gender Blog we will restrict our focus to the impact that this has on biblical manhood and womanhood.

We are faced at this point with the imminent possibility that a single man could purchase a rabbit egg, and have it fused with his own skin cell to produce a child. Perhaps this man would need to rent a womb for nine months in a cost-effective third world country, but even that requirement may become obsolete. Conceivably, a woman could team up with a rabbit and then carry her own clone child without the inconvenience of harvesting her own eggs.

Further, a woman might soon be able to have a sperm cell manufactured from her own bone marrow. This would allow, among other things, a lesbian couple to produce children without any masculine intervention - not even an anonymous sperm donor.

Complementarians should have a high view of the value of women as mothers: A woman is not interchangeable with a rabbit. Biblically speaking, fatherhood and motherhood are more than genetic combinations. The creation mandate (Gen. 1:27) did not encourage human beings to mindlessly breed like or with animals. Rather, one man and one woman are to come together in procreation and by God's grace raise children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4).

For further posts on this topic, take a look at Is a Woman Just an Egg Factory? and Is a Woman Just a "Womb for Hire"?