My first draft of this blog went into how I used to think all wrong about being a woman and what I’ve realized God has said about being a man or a woman and how His way is better.
I wrote it all and it was pretty decent. All day God used that blog to help me process where I’ve been. Well in processing I started seeing a lot of the ways I used to be and was so broken. For a minute I almost held onto those lies and ‘who I am’ BUT then by God’s grace He has taught me to speak out my struggles. And all the sudden I found myself crying to my team about how I want to be… I want to follow and submit to God, I want to be a woman the way God describes it.
Then I got ‘hit in the face’ with the Truth by 3 amazing men and ultimately Jesus.
The truth is I already AM a woman of God. All God wants is our hearts. The moment we give Him our heart we are His children and are defined by that and that alone!
Here’s my original blog…
I grew up with my two brothers, for most of my childhood I was the only girl in the neighborhood. My house was always full of guys and I just wanted to be exactly like them… sometimes I forgot that I was a girl or wished I wasn’t. I remember getting in trouble for thinking I could just take my shirt off to to jump in a pool or while playing in the hot summer sun… we looked exactly alike under our shirts… why can’t I run around without my shirt off. Ridiculous. (I was seriously mad.)
I wasn’t a total tomboy, I still loved my barbies and ballet. But, I was always trying to keep up, fit in, be part of the guys and then later convince them they should play Little Pony with me.
When I started dating this changed a little, I wanted them to treat me like a lady, but I still wanted to be one of the guys. That clearly didn’t work out so well and it would make me so mad… just like with the shirt so many years before but at least now I thought I understood the difference. I didn’t. After years of living and dating in our society. Dating. Guy friends. Disappointments. Hurts. I decided I had to take care of myself. I thought I understood men. I had them figured out. I knew which were good and which were bad and how I thought they should be. I had all kinds of ideas of how my boyfriend/husband should be and act. The problem is they were all about what I wanted, my opinions, my desires. It so easy to think you know best and make it all about YOU.
As women we aren’t supposed to define how it all goes, in fact God already has. Men don’t need us to tell them what to do or how to act, they have God and other men to teach them how to act like men.
side note: Did you realize you take away from their very manhood when you try and lead a man by telling them how they should be a man.
What do we really know about being a man anyway? God gives us the roles for men and women. He defines it all for us.
Why would we try to change that?
For so long I thought I had to control what kind of people I let in my life… I’ve come to the conclusion I can only control/change myself and so I’m trying to really embrace…
What it means to be a WOMAN.
You’d think after 29 years I would have figured this out. But I’m done with trying to define this for myself. I know God is smarter, I know I don’t have all the answers. I trust that God’s way is better.
What does that even look like?
Yesterday Katie and I were talking about putting on the Armor of God (Ephesians 6) and God gave me a picture of Cinderella in her ball gown. This makes so much sense to me… of course this is what it would look like for a woman to walk into battle. I think women were created to be ELEGANT. Our battle was not meant to be fought with our brut strength but with our beauty.
According to dictionary.com
Beauty…
noun, plural beau·ties.
1. the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).
2. a beautiful person, especially a woman.
3. a beautiful thing, as a work of art or a building.
4. Often, beauties. something that is beautiful in nature or in some natural or artificial environment.
- an individually pleasing or beautiful quality; grace; charm: a vivid blue area that is the one real beauty of the painting.
I think True Beauty is Holiness (acting as our creator intended), not make up and manicures or how cute your outfit is.
We were also created to be helpers. I was told today the greek word for helper describing women in the Bible was the same word the used to describe God as our helper.
Wow… that’s power.
As women we are powerful. This gets so distorted in our society. It takes strength to be gentle, quiet, and to see someone for who they are not what they are doing.
These are all things I’ve been struggling with on this race. How do I go from being a self-sufficient woman of the world to this…
Titus 2:3-5
3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
Only by the grace of God, that’s how. I desire to be and am this woman! I may not walk in it all the time but God’s helping me with that part.
And here’s where I started to listen to the lies… that I’m not these things… I may not be perfect, but I am amazing. I am defined by being a daughter of the Creator of the Universe! That’s pretty legit! The above does describe who I am, I am all those good things and when I don’t walk in it, God gives me the grace and love I need to be picked up and to be strong enough to try again.
In order to choose the right path, we do not have to figure out the wrong one ~ we just need to follow the light.
AMEN.
