To Be Owned
A little over a month ago (at the time of writing–summer 2024), I attended the PCA General Assembly with my dad. It was my third time going, and I’ve enjoyed every part of it, but especially hanging out with my dad and his friends. Maybe I just like feeling grown up, but I do enjoy the conversations they have, and I like participating in them—or just listening—and learning from what they say.
But, while at GA, I realized I also like interacting with my dad’s friends because they get to see my connection to him.
Maybe that didn’t make sense. What I mean is that I like spending time with my dad’s friends because they can see that I’m connected to my dad, attached to him…that I belong to him.
Not in a way that keeps me from being my own person, but I don’t think those things have to conflict. I—like other people—belong, at my core, to God, and He’s given me to a few people while on this Earth, people who currently include myself—but also my parents.
Most especially my father, seeing as how he’s the head of our family and main protector of me, my sisters, and my mom. As a woman (well…I’m fifteen…) in his household, I’m attached to him in a unique way—my belonging is different from a friend’s belonging, different (of course) from a wife’s belonging, different—not worse or lower—from a son’s belonging.
And there’s an element of pride (in a good way) in being my dad’s, in going to restaurants and events with him and being seen as “Adam’s daughter”, in being attached to him and seen as his.
Of course, there’s a way this can be corrupted. In fact, it’s also something I dislike about being around my dad’s friends, especially if they’re visiting from out of town or haven’t seen me often. They don’t know me, so they don’t realize that I am, in another sense, my own person, that my thoughts, opinions, and ideas are more than just jokes, and come from my head, not just from my dad. And I’m his kid, not his pet.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be seen as “his kid”. In many situations, like when I’m in public with him or around his friends, I want to be perceived as belonging to my father.
Not as a piece of property. No, as a member of his household. A teenage, female member of his household.
Family, dear reader, is a miniature Bright House. And the father (in a nuclear family structure, which is most often ideal) is a miniature master.
During this trip, I had an interesting realization. My joy at being my dad’s reminded me of something:
I want to be a wife. (This is not a request for someone to help me out with that, by the way, just in case there was any confusion.) Here, I’ve seen, is my (likely) path: right now, I belong to my father.
I will one day belong to my husband. And I want to. Deeply.
Again, not “belong” like a piece of property. Not “belong” like a pet. Not “belong” like a slave. Not even “belong” as a child, not to my husband. But belong nonetheless. Yes, we’ll both “belong” to each other, we’ll love and serve each other, but that’s not all of what I mean. In the tiny Bright House we build together, he will be master, and I will be second-in-command.
We will be as Abraham and Sarah. As Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. As Christ and the Church.
We talk about “belonging” as if it’s what we want. We want to belong in our social environment, to belong in a culture, to belong to our friend group or to the people we love.
And then we refuse to give ourselves up.
Most truly, at our core, we belong to God. We are His, and He has given us to others and others to us for an indefinite time, as a blessing.
And yeah, with some relationships, he does that differently for girls than for guys.
I like being seen with my dad, being seen as his daughter, belonging to him and serving under him—not in value, but in the hierarchy of our family. Like a soldier who takes pride in the officer in authority over him or an employee who takes pride in the boss she serves, I am proud to be commanded by him.
I hope to be proud to belong to my husband, too.
It’s not a power struggle. It’s a painting, a dance, a piece of music in which every member of humanity has a part.
I am glad to be owned.
