Emily Graves spoke with author Julie Gorman

I was hoping that one man would come along and meet all the diversities and the facets of my life and be able to make me feel fulfilled. What I didn't realise is that men, just like me, need grace, forgiveness, redemption; they need that love, acceptance and forgiveness like we experience. When we come to Christ and we have a relationship with Him, that's how God in his perfect wholeness and holiness enters into relationship with us. He bases it with love, acceptance and forgiveness and it wasn't until I was able to encounter that love; encounter that acceptance and that unconditional forgiveness and grace that I was ever able to extend it to another person.

Emily: What do you think has sparked some of these lies for society as a whole?

Julie: Everywhere we turn there's two different things or perspectives that are shaped. One, there's like this character that is portrayed of being this perfect knight and as I alluded to earlier, he knows exactly what to say, when to say it, he's perfect in every way and you know, he's this fearless rescuer who comes to the damsel in distress in a moment. And then the other side of it that our society portrays is men as these bumbling idiots that their greatest aspiration in life is to have control over the remote control.

I believe a lot of what has shaped our belief systems is what we're watching, but aside from that we've gone from where the woman was a stay at home mother and her identity was so secure in being a wife and a mother, to being thrown out into society and juggling the career and juggling all of those things. It's left us extremely vulnerable. As a woman as I watch even my daughters - it's this trapping of trying to figure out who we are and where we stick; we're longing for significance, but our fulfilment comes in our identity of how God created us. Until we come to that point of firmly and truly knowing 'Who does God say I am? What is His plan for my life? Not my plan, not my parent's plan, not even another person's plan, but how did God distinctly create me?' And until we know that, I believe that we're left vulnerable, searching and grasping and grabbing after anything. Unfortunately I think that for many young girls in our society today, the answer is being thrown at us of multiple relationships, finding that perfect guy, relationships, in and out of marriage, sexual encounters and all of these things are supposedly going to fulfil us. We need to come to that point where we say, 'God, my life is yours, I know that you breathed stars into existence, you hold the heavens in place, you give me the breath I just breathed, my life's yours, what do you want to do with it?', but so often we don't take the time to really discover that, so we're left grasping at anything that will bring a momentary relief.

Emily: Obviously the title of your book is 'What I Wish My Mother Had Told Me About Men', but do we have enough conversations in our families about relationships as well?

Julie: Oh heavens yeah, that's a great question. I'm asked so frequently, how do you talk to your teenage girls about these types of things? My daughters come to me and they tell me stuff and sometimes I'm like, "Can you just go deal with that on your own?" I don't know how to navigate these conversations because sometimes they're a little bit embarrassing, because I didn't have those conversations. I'm not sure, and it's really a judgement and asking God for wisdom. Y'know His word says He'll give us wisdom for anyone who lacks it; to simply ask of Him and He'll give it to us. I'm so grateful for that because there are times where my daughters are bringing up conversations and I'm not comfortable about it. So what I have to do is I have to stop and I have to realise just how very important it is for me to take the time to listen to them.

What I found is one of the most effective ways of talking with my kids is simply to ask them questions and then to take those questions and say, 'Well what do you think God's perspective is?' Because the truth is they really do have the answers within them and they don't need me chiding down.

You asked the question, "Do we have enough conversations?" And I would say no, I don't think we do unfortunately. The reason why is because we're either uncomfortable, we don't know what to say, we're out of touch, or we begin to try to control our kids and the truth is, we can't control another human being. We can't be anybody else's Holy Spirit, so the way that God has helped me to navigate through some really difficult conversations is to simply ask questions, 'Well what do you think, what are other people saying?' Instead of being so afraid of what they might believe. I have to come to terms with it, I let them explore, I let them talk and if there's something that I don't necessarily adhere to or believe, that I feel runs contradictory to God's Word, I say 'Well y'know, how does that line up with God's Word, what are your thoughts with that?' And the more that I ask that, the more the dialogue continues and the more the doors remain open. Sometimes there is a little bit too much information for me to handle, but it's great, what a tremendous privilege to be able to know the inner thoughts of my daughters and my son's thoughts for that matter.

Emily: So I presume that your advice to other mothers and fathers would be to sit and have those conversations then and don't be afraid of them?

Julie: Oh, absolutely. Here's the truth, our kids are going to have those conversations and they're either going to have those conversations in the safety of our home, or their paradigms are going to be shaped with their friends and what the media are saying. So the more that we can be comfortable in our own skins; comfortable in knowing that God is so much greater than us and that He will help us navigate through parenthood - I wish they had a 'how to' course on parenting - but the more that we invite His Holy Spirit, the one who designed us, who gives us our very breath to give us the wisdom, it is such a rewarding journey. Conversations are gonna take place one way or the other and so as parents we need to learn to get really comfortable, so that those conversations can be taking place with us rather than with others.

Emily: So we've spoken about how we need to accept and celebrate men for who they are, but also what can we do to encourage a change in society as well, when it comes to looking at men from those viewpoints?

Julie: Ralph Waldo Emerson said that every man deserves to be remembered by his best moments and I think that's one of the singular thoughts that has shaped my paradigm of men.

My father passed away over a year and a half ago now, almost two years and as I stood by his casket and I looked in at his funeral setting and looked at his face, it was such a tremendous last moment of healing that rushed over me, because the thought came to me as I looked at my dad's face - my son's face just kinda popped into my mind's eye, just kinda drifted through my head - and what I realised is, at one point my father was just like my son, he had high aspirations, he was a little boy with big dreams, but somewhere along the line those big dreams got tainted and the brokenness that spilled out on his life unfortunately ended up getting spilled out on mine. In that moment what I was able to do was just that one final thrust of forgiveness - of y'know, 'Daddy, I forgive you' for only being able to love me with the capacity that you were able to. In that moment what it allowed me to do was it allowed me to celebrate the times that my father did show kindness, when he played ball in the back yard. Instead of remembering all the things that hurt or damaged or skewed my perception of men, I was able to celebrate his life and remember him for his best moments.

I think that the more that we as a society give grace to one another, to realise that we're all just trying to figure it out, we're all on a search for significance, we all long to be loved and to be seen and be fully known, the more we have that fullness that is our hole in our soul filled with God, the more we're gonna be able to extend it to others. So I think that as a society if we can operate more in a place of grace, a place of giving versus being self-centred and 'how are you gonna meet my needs, what can you do for me?' Y'know, those kind of thoughts, not just in a man and woman relationship but from friends to friends and from employers to employees, and from every aspect of life, even from being a parent to our kids, sometimes we want them to make us look good, but the more that we can extend grace and forgiveness, I believe the more we're gonna shape our society to be one that is giving, forgiving and filled with compassion and love.