Women are strong. I think that is one word that throughout the ages is used to describe us. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” we protect our young or those closest to us like a “fierce mother bear,” we can survive under unbelievable odds just to accomplish a goal, we watch the backs of those closest to us, and the list goes on. Nothing cracks me up more or amazes me more than seeing a woman fly off the handle to assert her strength. I’m sure that even in these brief lines you have already pictured different situations where you witnessed your mother, a friend, or a crazed lady on the street declaring her strength.
But the thing is, if we were asked to describe ourselves, strength would not be a word on our lists.
Why is that?
For example, my mother, she is a powerful pillar for my brothers and me. I have not yet met a woman who I think is stronger than my mother, emotionally or spiritually. But even now, as she reads this for the first or zillionth time, I know that she is brushing off these statements with, “You have to say that because you are my daughter.”
Not true! Why do we do this? Why can’t we accept that God gave us an incomparable strength that allows us to raise a family, accomplish our dreams, encourage one another, and protect the helpless?
I’m sorry, ladies, but let this be your wake up call. You are strong! Stop shaking your head, and don’t put this book down. You need to realize who you are and how others perceive you, how can you go on day to day thinking that you are nothing when you so clearly are something of immeasurable worth? Suck it up and just allow it to sink in.
Accept the truth.
Accept your strength.
But something else that amazes me about women is that hand in hand with this great strength is fear. Unfortunately, this doesn’t amuse me when I see it displayed, instead my heart breaks.
Even though women are strong, they are only strong when they need to be. When all other tactics fail or if they are not the ones being attacked, that’s when the strength comes out. But in our day to day lives, that’s not what I typically see.
I see fear.
Normally what would be a beautiful woman who stands upright and puts her head up ready for the next adventure of the day, becomes a being that is unrecognizable. Something shrinks inside them and they dry up with the fear that they can’t do it right, or they’ll never be enough, or that they’ll be found out as an imposter, or that they’ll never be pretty enough, thin enough, fill-in-the-blank enough…
My mom is strongest woman I know because day by day she learns how to conquer that fear and slowly she unwraps her arms from around her head and begins to look out around her and sees truth.
Ultimately, that is why I think we are all fearful—at least I know it’s true for me—it’s because I can’t see or hear the truth.
The devil is wiley. He will do anything to distract you from the truth of God. There have been painful times in my life where it seems as if my head is surrounded by a think cloud of lies and all it makes you feel is depressed and dirty and worthless. It seems that no matter how hard you try to take a breath it’s stolen away from you. So you sit there or lie curled up in a ball thinking that you’ll never get through this and there never will be a light at the end of the tunnel. And when people see you walking through life, all they see is that fear of no tomorrow and the fear that you can never get through this is true.
If you’re going through this right now, I can’t even think of what to say to help you crawl out of that smog. I remember little of what people said to me to comfort me in those times of life, I just remember crying. And one particular instance, I remember a friend telling me through the sound of my snot gurgles, “Tonight as you go to sleep, imagine that you are laying your head on Jesus’ lap and he is stroking your hair and telling you that you are his.” So, if you are going through a time in your life where the lies are the only thing you hear and all you feel is fear and pain, then I guess I just want to reiterate my dear friend’s words to you. And if that’s you, just stop reading now and go rest your eyes from crying. Come back and finish tomorrow.
That suffocating feeling of pain is exactly what the devil wants you to feel, because he knows that will cripple you. It will keep you from doing what you were made to do.
My sisters, I know that you know the truth deep in your being. That God created you with the knowledge that he is enough. So I just have one question for you:
The Lord is the stronghold of my life, whom shall I fear?
It takes a lot more than me telling you that God is your strength for there to be a difference in your life. When you start to breath that truth, then I’d love to see the difference in your life.
Maybe it’s not as simple as this, but I think the difference between walking in strength or fear is our acknowledgment of God. When we think that we have strength on our own, that’s when things can go haywire. But to rely on the fullness of Christ’s promises for your life?
I have to catch my breath to even begin to think of it.
Ladies, you are strong. But not on your own. The only reason my mom can see the promises of tomorrow, is because she relies on Christ to pull her up from the mud that she was lying in and help her to walk. There is no other reason.
So will you accept God’s power and protection? ‘Cause with that, really, whom shall you fear?
1.13.2010
1.11.2010
the marriage
There is a rumor going around about women, and I don’t just mean a little story that doesn’t affect our lives like Betty-Sue doesn’t use Cream of Tartar in her sugar cookies, but a huge story that should make us stop in our tracks and do a double take. It’s a stereotype that says women are gossips. Uncaring twits that really only concern themselves with the next best story about so and so who did such and such. It’s odd, because although this stereotype is pasted over the image of every woman, there is a particular group of females that this stereotype is directed to more than others. The sad thing is that the rumor seems to ring true when its defendants are scrutinized under the microscope.
It’s the church going women.
And even narrower than that, it’s women who are of some influence in the church, like the pastor’s or deacons’ wives. It’s these women that we find ourselves, more often than not, trying to steer clear of. It’s these women that give all women a bad name. And it’s this name, that at some point in our lives, we all seem to live up to, even if it’s just for a minute. The gossipy, whiny, unpleasant, busy-bodies that you just smile at but don’t ever dare to become vulnerable or intimate with, because you know your life would be broadcast across the whole town like the 7 o’clock news.
Thanks ladies, you’ve ruined the rest of our reps.
You have heard, I’m sure, that the Church is the bride of Christ. Well, it wasn’t until I started reading Organic Church, by Neil Cole, that an idea struck me. He said that the Church is Christ’s wife. You’d think that I would get that idea on my own seeing as I already know that we are his bride. But when I read those few words, my breath held inside of me and I immediately thought, “Oh no.” This image of the busy-body came to my mind, because this is the image that we portray to the world. A past middle-aged woman who doesn’t actually give a lick about you as a person, but just wants information, or wants to corner you so that you can listen to her complain about so and so and this and that. Who wants to be around her? What’s so attractive about her?
One of my greatest desires is to be a wife and a mother and to care tenderly for my family. But another thing that I would love, although it would terrify me at times, is to be married to someone of influence, like, for example, a pastor, so that other women could see our relationship or how I interact with others and think, “Oh, it really can be like that?” or “You can be gracious in conflict?” So when I read that we are Christ’s wife, this picture flooded into my brain and I screamed inside, “We’re ruining it!” Of course no one wants to get close to you or think that you can heal their wounds, all you want to do it rub this mess in their face and point fingers. You don’t really care. ‘Cause they would know if we cared. Wouldn’t they?
Wouldn’t the world look at us a little bit differently if we shut up and listened? If we put our arm around the single mother who is crying that her son got mixed up in the wrong crowd, instead of smirking with our eyebrows raised thinking (or even saying), “That’s what you get when the father is out of the picture.” What if we used our fingers to bind the wounds of our sisters instead of pressing into them to cause more pain. What if we took our eyes off of our comfort, and looked at the horizon that is chalk full of people staggering with pain beyond our comprehension? And what if once we noticed that pain we acted on it, instead of quickly putting our heads back down and pretended as if it didn’t exist.
It reminds me of when I did an internship with an organization that helped women who were trafficked. I was at a conference raising awareness about the issue and while I was talking to one woman I recommended a book that is short and to the point, but tells the plight of these women unbelievably well. 1 She picked up the booked and kind of furrowed her brow as she flipped from the front to the back looking slightly put off. Then she placed it down and said more to the book than to me, “I don’t think I could do that.” Then she simply walked away. I was appalled to say the least, but the truth is that we all do this. I think that there are legitimate times when we need to be careful about what we put into our brains, because sometimes it's just downright stupid. But here we are talking about a serious issue that seriously affects women all over the world, and we need to put on the brakes because, maybe we'd feel guilty. Maybe we would feel her pain. Maybe our hearts would break. Maybe we would be moved to act. We don’t want the responsibility of knowing about someone else’s pain, we don’t want to identify with it, because then we would have to do something about it. I mean, can you really know and do nothing about how baby girls are being sold by their families and the younger they are the higher the price men will pay to use their bodies? I surely hope not. If you can, I seriously suggest you look into why you are so consumed with your own comfort? Why doesn’t your heart break for the sin of the world?
Okay, now back to the point. I’m not sure if you realize this, if you are a person who proclaims to be a Christian, you are actually proclaiming a lot more than “I’m going to heaven someday.” You are telling the world that you are married. I hope that if you are married to a man on this earth that you actually live life with them. I’m not sure if that makes sense, let’s see if I can flesh it out a bit more. I hope that after you say, “I do” and vow to spend your life with this person, that you actually will. You’ll learn about your husband and compromise and fight and grow together. You won’t go on with your daily business and just talk to him like he’s your roommate, but he’s your mate. To be cliché—he’s your other half! That’s what it should look like with Christ. When I tell people that I’m a Christian I’m telling them about my husband, who is so mysterious and wonderful that I can’t wait to continue life with him so that I can learn more about him tomorrow than I did today. And as each new day comes I become more like him, because he is so breathtaking in every imaginable way. Even as I write these words I am so convicted, because I know that in reality, I would prefer to forget that I’m a wife and live without him. I would rather be selfish and put myself first. In reality, I’m a crappy wife. So I hope you know that I’m not yelling at you ladies telling you that you’re screwing it up for the rest of Christians, but I’m yelling at myself. Because daily I forget that I’m in love. Maybe that sounds silly, but for me it’s so true. I forget that there is a story outside of myself and that the storyteller is the one I am promised to. I hope that tomorrow when I wake up I remember that I am in love and when I do, I choose to put him first and I choose to actually live life with him by my side, instead of keeping him as an afterthought.
If we actually live that way tomorrow, maybe the world will look at us and they’ll stop and do a double take and they’ll realize that the rumor is wrong. They must have misheard it, because those women they see are the most compassionate and truth-filled people they have ever met.
So then they start a new rumor, one that wonders about the change and why we are all glowing like newly-weds.
It’s the church going women.
And even narrower than that, it’s women who are of some influence in the church, like the pastor’s or deacons’ wives. It’s these women that we find ourselves, more often than not, trying to steer clear of. It’s these women that give all women a bad name. And it’s this name, that at some point in our lives, we all seem to live up to, even if it’s just for a minute. The gossipy, whiny, unpleasant, busy-bodies that you just smile at but don’t ever dare to become vulnerable or intimate with, because you know your life would be broadcast across the whole town like the 7 o’clock news.
Thanks ladies, you’ve ruined the rest of our reps.
You have heard, I’m sure, that the Church is the bride of Christ. Well, it wasn’t until I started reading Organic Church, by Neil Cole, that an idea struck me. He said that the Church is Christ’s wife. You’d think that I would get that idea on my own seeing as I already know that we are his bride. But when I read those few words, my breath held inside of me and I immediately thought, “Oh no.” This image of the busy-body came to my mind, because this is the image that we portray to the world. A past middle-aged woman who doesn’t actually give a lick about you as a person, but just wants information, or wants to corner you so that you can listen to her complain about so and so and this and that. Who wants to be around her? What’s so attractive about her?
One of my greatest desires is to be a wife and a mother and to care tenderly for my family. But another thing that I would love, although it would terrify me at times, is to be married to someone of influence, like, for example, a pastor, so that other women could see our relationship or how I interact with others and think, “Oh, it really can be like that?” or “You can be gracious in conflict?” So when I read that we are Christ’s wife, this picture flooded into my brain and I screamed inside, “We’re ruining it!” Of course no one wants to get close to you or think that you can heal their wounds, all you want to do it rub this mess in their face and point fingers. You don’t really care. ‘Cause they would know if we cared. Wouldn’t they?
Wouldn’t the world look at us a little bit differently if we shut up and listened? If we put our arm around the single mother who is crying that her son got mixed up in the wrong crowd, instead of smirking with our eyebrows raised thinking (or even saying), “That’s what you get when the father is out of the picture.” What if we used our fingers to bind the wounds of our sisters instead of pressing into them to cause more pain. What if we took our eyes off of our comfort, and looked at the horizon that is chalk full of people staggering with pain beyond our comprehension? And what if once we noticed that pain we acted on it, instead of quickly putting our heads back down and pretended as if it didn’t exist.
It reminds me of when I did an internship with an organization that helped women who were trafficked. I was at a conference raising awareness about the issue and while I was talking to one woman I recommended a book that is short and to the point, but tells the plight of these women unbelievably well. 1 She picked up the booked and kind of furrowed her brow as she flipped from the front to the back looking slightly put off. Then she placed it down and said more to the book than to me, “I don’t think I could do that.” Then she simply walked away. I was appalled to say the least, but the truth is that we all do this. I think that there are legitimate times when we need to be careful about what we put into our brains, because sometimes it's just downright stupid. But here we are talking about a serious issue that seriously affects women all over the world, and we need to put on the brakes because, maybe we'd feel guilty. Maybe we would feel her pain. Maybe our hearts would break. Maybe we would be moved to act. We don’t want the responsibility of knowing about someone else’s pain, we don’t want to identify with it, because then we would have to do something about it. I mean, can you really know and do nothing about how baby girls are being sold by their families and the younger they are the higher the price men will pay to use their bodies? I surely hope not. If you can, I seriously suggest you look into why you are so consumed with your own comfort? Why doesn’t your heart break for the sin of the world?
Okay, now back to the point. I’m not sure if you realize this, if you are a person who proclaims to be a Christian, you are actually proclaiming a lot more than “I’m going to heaven someday.” You are telling the world that you are married. I hope that if you are married to a man on this earth that you actually live life with them. I’m not sure if that makes sense, let’s see if I can flesh it out a bit more. I hope that after you say, “I do” and vow to spend your life with this person, that you actually will. You’ll learn about your husband and compromise and fight and grow together. You won’t go on with your daily business and just talk to him like he’s your roommate, but he’s your mate. To be cliché—he’s your other half! That’s what it should look like with Christ. When I tell people that I’m a Christian I’m telling them about my husband, who is so mysterious and wonderful that I can’t wait to continue life with him so that I can learn more about him tomorrow than I did today. And as each new day comes I become more like him, because he is so breathtaking in every imaginable way. Even as I write these words I am so convicted, because I know that in reality, I would prefer to forget that I’m a wife and live without him. I would rather be selfish and put myself first. In reality, I’m a crappy wife. So I hope you know that I’m not yelling at you ladies telling you that you’re screwing it up for the rest of Christians, but I’m yelling at myself. Because daily I forget that I’m in love. Maybe that sounds silly, but for me it’s so true. I forget that there is a story outside of myself and that the storyteller is the one I am promised to. I hope that tomorrow when I wake up I remember that I am in love and when I do, I choose to put him first and I choose to actually live life with him by my side, instead of keeping him as an afterthought.
If we actually live that way tomorrow, maybe the world will look at us and they’ll stop and do a double take and they’ll realize that the rumor is wrong. They must have misheard it, because those women they see are the most compassionate and truth-filled people they have ever met.
So then they start a new rumor, one that wonders about the change and why we are all glowing like newly-weds.
introduction
I tried to write a book like this once with a dear friend of mine. But because of various circumstances and, ironically enough, misplaced identity, it never actually got past the outline stage. I told myself after the project and our friendship failed that it’s okay that we never wrote it. I figured it was his load that he felt needed to be splattered on pages to try to help the church, that wasn’t my burden—that wasn’t my heart.
I have to be completely honest with you, and hopefully I will be throughout these pages, but I have fought the need to write. I have worked on several chapters the past few years, and figured that my book to you would just be a hodgepodge of random twenty-something thoughts that no grown woman would really take seriously, and maybe you won’t take this seriously either, but I have to obey. In John 3—Just after John the baptizer says that Christ must increase and he must decrease—it is talking about Christ being above all and what it means to receive his testimony, and then in verse 36 it says “Whoever believes in the son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” I’ve read this passage several times, but it hit me differently this year. I glanced over it and then my eyes had to sweep it again and again to try to take it in…belief and obey are the same. Maybe you’ve heard that before, and I probably had, too, but it didn’t sink in until that moment. So what if I believe in God (even the demons believe and shudder) and am deeply moved by his truths, what does it mean if I don’t obey him? So that’s what this book is. It’s not me trying to be creative, although I do believe that God will show his handiwork through me; it’s not me trying to climb onto a measly soap box, although I hope that God’s truth convicts your hearts; it’s me obeying.
I’m in the middle of doing Beth Moore’s Esther Bible study at my church and tonight she talked about the reversal of destiny and how there are reversals all throughout the Bible. Where a person’s life, or a story, is heading one direction with a particular focus and then God works and the focus is completely redirected to his glory. This is evident in every Christians’ life, where our purpose was for darkness and we were an enemy of God, and then God’s grace scoops us out of the mire we have been sloshing around in and our purpose is now to fight through his power and for his glory. Beth said that if we look at our lives we would all be able to pinpoint that shift. I think that there are several shifts throughout a believer’s life, but probably an overarching theme. At least I can see one in mine. And although I don’t want to just talk about my issues to you, they are going to be a huge part of it. I hope that every time I pick up a pen or open up another Word document I can start it off with prayer, so that I am reminded that my life is not about me. We are apart of such a bigger picture than our small dust-filled lives. I pray that we can lift our eyes from this horizon of life so that when God reveals his bigger story to us we have the vision to see it and can’t help but shout it to others when we do. God’s world is amazing and I’m so thankful that he has extended the invitation to me to be able to join him in it.
I know that I am young, and that may put some of you off on the idea of reading what I have to say, but I think that it’s critical that we be in community together. Most likely, if you are picking up this book, you are one of my sisters. I don’t just mean like in the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” but that we have the same father God, and the same older brother, Christ. So, I want to share with you some of the things that I have been sifting through in my life, or some things that I think are crucial for women of any age to reflect on.
My dear sisters, we’re in this battle together, trying to make it from day to day and not go crazy. So I hope that I can help you dig deeper inside yourself, so that you too can reflect on how you should be living life.
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