Erika

One Too Many Catcalls

September 26, 2015

by erika haveman

My life for as long as I can remember has been a series of “in between”. Presently my “in between” sees me washing freshly picked produce before organizing it into boxes or baskets or bags before selling them to whoever it is that desires fresh food. It can often be demanding and the hours are long, but I love it. I’m outside every day, I get to be creative in setting up every day, and it’s always a joy to see a familiar face and exactly what they’re stopping for at the vegetable stand. The farmer I work for has two market stands – one located at her farm and the other a short distance away at a busy country intersection that links several country towns to the “city”. I’ll work at both locations throughout a normal week, and though I do love being at the high volume traffic stop, there’s one thing that doesn’t irk me so much as intrigue me.

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of blazing trails

August 26, 2015

by erika haveman

Do you ever get overwhelmed by choices? People say that millenials have more choice than any other generation, and often they let those choices paralyze them. You see so many adults in their early 20s and 30s taking a long time to settle down. I’m probably a poster child for this, my reality regularly being a slew of choices yet it takes me a while to make any decision.

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Is Sexy Worth Being Used?

August 14, 2015

One of my favourite movies is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Story of my life if I ever saw one. I used to be a total day dreamer, conjuring up impossible and ridiculous scenarios that made me the hero, or at least that made me the woman in the hero’s arms. I am naturally someone comfortable with staying in on a Saturday night, with my best effort at risk being trying the “no name” granola bars instead of the “Quaker” ones (better price, you know?) I’m not spontaneous, danger or thrill seeking. In my head I like to think I could become that way, but I’ve learned to champion the truth of who I am: not that. Another reason I love and connect with the movie is how inspirational it is, portraying organically Walter shifting from day dreamer to dreamer. It’s a beautiful transition, and the first time I saw the move I knew that’s exaclty what God was working out in my life. I encourage you to watch the movie, push through the somewhat confusing day dreams, and watch as a wary, fear-filled life transforms into one of trust, pursuit and beauty. But I’m not writing to get you to watch the film; rather I want to reflect on one of my absolute favourite lines in it. It’s spoken by Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), photographer extraordinaire who has lived the life of a daredevile just to capture a moment in time worthy of being shared with the world. In a scene where Walter (Ben Stiller) has travelled literally across the world to find Sean sitting somewhere in the Himalayas (see – story of my life! Who knew I’d be in the Himalayas less than a year after I saw the movie!?) While sitting and conversing over why Walter has sought out Sean, there is a pause in conversation as the entire point of the movie comes to life as Sean so brilliantly suggests, “beautiful things don’t ask for attention.”

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Sex Free Dating – is it possible?

July 12, 2015

Last week I started laying down a case for how the world sees virginity as something to be less than valued, minimizing it to something someone “does”. Phrases like “put out,” “tap that,” and “doing it” are often used in place of sex, as if you using a vulgarity to demean sex makes it okay. It’s simply not okay, and who is advocating for things like staying pure until marriage? How can you stay pure until marriage when the world is telling you it’s okay to not wait and you’re facing feelings of sexual desire?

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Nobody does a VIRGIN

July 6, 2015

The words were splayed across her bare back, taunting girls that their virginity is something to be less than valued. As if nobody will accept and by extension love a girl if she hasn’t had sex before. That girls who weren’t willing to bare it all, just to be “did”, were girls that were a little less than human, hardly woman at all; girls unwilling to “put out” aren’t worth anybody’s time, and if a girl isn’t worth anybody’s time clearly they aren’t worth anything at all. Nobody does a virgin. The injustice of this statement and all of its devastating implications welled up to something close to anger inside of me – and as such things often do, I was inspired to write about it. Continue reading “Nobody does a VIRGIN”

of what to wear

July 1, 2015

I read an article last week that had some quotes that reminded me of something I wrote a couple of years ago when my journey into understanding modesty, purity, lust and ultimately understanding life as, in part, a sexual being began. Little did I know that writing that piece, which was in response to a popular video at the time, would skyrocket me into conversations and research about this topic that I, at first, had assumed was fairly straight forward. Here I am two years later, not only still pursuing the topic, but now also pursuing writing a book about it. The thing that really threw me for a good loop in the article was a quote by a young girl (12 years old) who said, “You’re supposed to be proud of your body, not have to cover it up…” This was in response to having to wear a t-shirt over a bikini. My gut reaction wasn’t “well of course you need to wear a t-shirt!” No. Far from it. Rather it was the underlying, unfortunately broken, message this girl had come to understand, which made me beg the question: Why does being confident of one’s body equate to keeping it uncovered?

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of busy

June 24, 2015

My life is so busy. Like probably out of anybody I know, mine is the busiest. Even compared to that mom with those 4 absolutely insane children and husband who works all the time – busier than hers. I wish she would understand how I am busier than her so her judgemental stares wouldn’t cut me down so much. It’s actually so unfair that my life is busy, and I just wish it wasn’t. Oh how I wish it wasn’t! I wish it would just slow down. My life is super busy – so much so that I never have time to do things I love, like go out for coffee with a friend or get 8 hours of sleep. Busy rules my life – I am busier than anyone, and people need to understand this.

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of being alone

June 12, 2015

What kind of feelings brought you to come and read this blog post? I know I used to see things about “being alone” and my eyes would widen, body would tense, I’d leap dramatically back, hands pushing away an imaginary monster that was terrifyingly gigantic and clearly going to swallow me whole, making sounds similar to the ones Will Ferrell does in Elf after he sprays perfume into his mouth. It’s not quite like that anymore, and I hope it wasn’t the scary monster of loneliness that brought you here, but a simple curiosity. Continue reading “of being alone”

of what we’re fighting for

February 22, 2015

I remember in the late 90s and early 2000s whilst I was in the throes of my adolescent years when Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera first hit the scene. They were scandalous and unconventional, and all of us teenaged girls were condemned from wearing belly tops out of the house (though clearly that was what was best in our teenaged minds). That seems tame now compared to what I see celebrities wear (and do) and how girls mimick them. And I’m guilty of moments – as a young, single woman – when I wish I could get away wearing the “right” thing and saying the “right” thing that would make me attractive for the “right” man. But that’s all part of a woman that God is trying to rip out of me (thankfully). It’s one messed up world we’re living in, and how are we fighting to clean it up? All I know is that recently the biggest mess seems to be sex related, and there’s always another something about sex showing up on my FB home feed, so I figured I’d join the rampage.

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of waiting [pt.2: the answer]

December 7, 2014

as I was praying earlier, wrestling through what I feel like will quite possibly be some imminent decisions I laid it out. Do I need to keep waiting (really?) or can I move on? And as I laid in my cushiony bed, wrapped in a cozy blanket, I could only hope that the answer would be clearly written on the mountains as the sun sets.

before you keep reading I encourage you to read

[pt.1: the question]

or you may find yourself a little lost in

what the significance of these thoughts are.

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