Today we’d like to introduce you to Marilyn Parker and Rebecca Feasel.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Marilyn and Rebecca. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
How did we get started blogging? Hmmm. I’d have to say we’ve both always been story-tellers. I (Marilyn, the mom in this mother/daughter duo) started writing stories as a little girl. Rebecca was always the talker in the family (still is!). We started Persevering Women because we want to use our stories to help struggling women to hang on and move forward when they think they just can’t.
And in order to do that, we had to be honest about our own struggles.
Honest is embarrassing sometimes. Rebecca and I have opened up our private stories because everyone has them, and they need to know they’re not alone.
When I was twenty-two years old, I got pregnant. I wasn’t married. Yeah, I know. No big deal today—but that was the sixties, and I was a religious girl. I was so ashamed and so frightened, especially since I knew the father of my child didn’t really want to marry me.
Things were different back then. Young women didn’t often raise children on their own. They usually disappeared for several months, returning empty-armed to whispers and humiliation. Or they hurriedly married, hoping no one would count the months when the baby was born a little too early.
Looking at my beautiful daughter now, I’m ashamed to say that I hoped for a miscarriage.
I might have even prayed for one. I just wanted this problem to go away. I would never do it again! I thought if I’d just wake up in a pool of blood, everything would be all right. No one would know what I’d done. I wouldn’t be looked down on or “have” to marry a man who would be doing the “right thing” only out of obligation. I didn’t see that the little button of life hidden in the depths of my body was a blessing from God.
But how can that be? How can our mistakes—some might even say sins—be part of God’s plan for good in our lives? It boggles the mind.
My forty-year marriage was a difficult one. I wanted to give up. Quit. Get a divorce.
Persevering through difficult situations isn’t easy. But easy isn’t always the best thing for us. God brings good out of difficult. Sometimes He even brings great out of difficult. So, our goal at Persevering Women is to stand by our sisters and help them through the difficult, so they can find the good and the great.
Rebecca has persevered through her own difficulties, and she’s still doing it day by day. She’s chosen the hard path when no one would have blamed her for taking the easier road. Not even me.
And since she likes to talk, here she is.
So, I’m Rebecca—beloved, humble, soft-spoken daughter of Marilyn. Ha! Well, a girl can dream. Right? It’s such a privilege to be doing Persevering Women with my mom. If there is one thing my mom has demonstrated to me it’s perseverance.
I’m a preacher’s kid, the firstborn of four, which makes me the boss—my siblings have never bought into that for some reason.
I’m a very patient and loving wife (I can actually hear my husband’s eyes rolling). Ha!
Thirty years ago, God brought a boy into my life who was also a preacher’s kid—which means we brought special baggage into our marriage, leaving us fifty shades of jacked up at times.
I’m so grateful for Doug.
Doug is exactly what God planned for me even though at times I’ve questioned that. My husband has suffered from deep depression and severe mood swings most of our married life. When he’s on the upside of the pendulum, he’s a wonderful husband and father, but when he’s at the bottom, it’s another story. His moods have made him really hard to live with.
I wanted to give up on my marriage. I became bitter and angry. Some people told me to get a divorce, that no one should have to live with what I was living with. But by God’s grace, I hung on, although I didn’t always do it with a good attitude. Sometimes I hated my husband. Well, sometimes he hated me back, so we’re even, I guess!
Doug still struggles sometimes, but he is doing so well! He’s found the strength to persevere and fight against depression, and to get the help he needs. He’s a musician, so he tells his story through his music on his website loanerrock.com
If I had given up on him, that might never have happened. And thankfully, he didn’t give up on himself or me. And God didn’t give up on either one of us.
So, it’s me, Marilyn, again.
The second part of the question was how we got where we are today. That’s easy. White knuckles and God’s grace. And realizing that life was never meant to be perfect.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Smooth? Umm—no! First of all, we had to get the courage to rip off the covers of our private lives. That took a while! Then we had to figure out how to build our own website since we didn’t have the money to pay someone to do it. Imagine two technologically challenged women at the back end of Word Press without a clue. It took us eight months!
We’ve also noticed that when we write on a certain subject, weird things start happening in that area. We wrote about fear, and all of a sudden I was bombarded by unreasonable fear for one of my kids. We wrote about joy, and all hell broke loose. Speaking of hell, I sometimes think the main occupant of that place doesn’t want to see us helping women.
Please tell us about your work. What do you guys do? What do you specialize in? What sets you apart from competition?
We write articles about things that affect women: child-raising, marriage, faith. We have something called Mindful Mutterings that we use as a tool to recognize and reject a lie when we hear it and replace it with a truth.
We have a non-fiction book on Amazon called I was a Stranger: a Guide to Biblical Hospitality. In the book, we look at Matthew 25 where Jesus warns that whatever we do to one of the “least” of His brothers or sisters, we do to Him. We address the heart of the believer, the church, and the country towards immigrants and Muslims, people with different lifestyles and worldviews–the strangers among us.
We share some hysterical stories about our personal experiences entertaining strangers in our home, like me trying to crawl into bed with a visiting minister and his wife while sleepwalking (breakfast was awkward!), and at the end of the book there’s a cookbook with all the great recipes I used to feed the crowds. The book is free on Amazon. Get it here.
I’m a novelist as well, with a book waiting—not so patiently—for a publisher. Rebecca and I are in the early stage of writing another non-fiction book together. We’re known for our humor and openness.
What sets us apart from others is that we’re mother/daughter bloggers. We also span a couple of generations so we have a wider audience (including a few brave men!).
Where do you see your industry going over the next 5-10 years? Any big shifts, changes, trends, etc?Well, for starters, we see ourselves with a stack of books we’ve authored to help women find their true worth. We believe in the power of “story” to bind wounds and heal hearts.
One really important thing we hope to put into place in the near future is a mechanism to help young single mothers with daycare so they can rise above that invisible weight that keeps them from becoming independent. My granddaughter recently had to quit a decent paying job with a career path in a field she loved because she couldn’t afford childcare. She made too much money to qualify for government assistance, and not enough to rent a small, safe apartment, pay daycare, and keep her car running.
She was just a raise or two away from independence when she had to quit. Now she has daycare and food stamps and works at a job with no future. We want to start a network of older women who can help these young women financially, and mentor them as well.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Our families, of course. When our husbands see our heads buried in our computers, they just sigh and walk on by. We wouldn’t be able to do this without their patient support. And most of all, God. We’re believers in His amazing grace and lavish love. We can’t do anything good without His help.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://perseveringwomen.com/
- Email: marilynandbecca@perseveringwomen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/perseveringwomen/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/perseveringwomen/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/PerseveringWom1
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/PerseveringWomen/
Image Credit:
Ashlyn Savannah
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