It's time to be a woman

For some time now I've had an aversion to doily coated women's meetings. I've never wanted to sit with a group of women sipping tea, painting my nails, and talking about shopping and homemaking. The roots of my aversion are varied, everything from feeling it to be surface level, to not feeling like I have common interests in these settings, to the unspoken feminist messages Portland fed me growing up. After twenty six and a half years of being content avoiding these events and discussions, being satisfied simply knowing I am His and my main role in life to to bring glory and honor to God, He has invited me on a journey that involves learning my role specifically as a woman of God.

In the past when I'd come up against an idea about a female's role, I would become frustrated hearing everyone's differing opinions on the topic, and in the end I would settle on, I don't care, I just know I'm His and I will do what He tells me. However, this time I'm confronted with the concept that men and women are not only different, but have different roles and the Lord is asking me to let Him tell me what that means and how He designed it. So I'm holding onto Him with white knuckles, bracing myself to have a paradigm shift. Already He's confronted some deep rooted issues I didn't even realize I had in me.

As I'm beginning this journey I began to pay attention to the ladies around me and I began to do some reading. What I've found so far is that most woman think they know what it means to be a woman (like I have thought myself) when in reality, few of us can articulate it or back it up with depth of scripture. Society, including Christian culture, has just told us things that we've unknowingly sucked in and accepted.

So I thought I would take you on this journey with me as I'm certain is will be at least a little life changing for me and I'm confident the Lord will reveal things. To start off let's just throw out some things I'm quite certain about and looking forward to gaining more revelation on.
 1. There is something about a woman's strength that is different than a man's and has a different purpose.
 2. God desires a gentleness and meekness in a woman that brings a certain kind of power and transformation.
 3. Something about what God's innately put in woman that allows them to mother.
 4. some other stuff that isn't coming to mind at the moment.

Second, God's already confronted some things in me that I didn't realize were there. So let's take a little look at some of the messages I was fed from a feminist society in the city I grew up in.
 1. Women can and should do anything a man can do.
 2. To desire only to be married and have a family is weak and demeans women, as women are capable of anything men are capable of.
 3. Women should be able to think like a man, and should not be overly emotional.
 4. Women and men do not have different roles based on their gender, they lead lives differently only because they are unique individuals.
 5. Women are strong.
 6. I'm sure there are way more but those are some that come to mind right off hand.

Now understand that I grew up in a godly home with parents that have a good marriage. My mom stayed at home with my brother and I and I have always regarded her as someone who is incredibly intelligent and capable. I never questioned the decision for her to be home raising my brother and I. I also see her as an incredibly influential woman. She has impacted, to a very great degree, a huge number of lives from relatives, to neighbors, to church goers, to friends, to people she pretty much just picked up off the street.

However, despite these things I have come to realize that there are lies deeply rooted in me that I haven't even realized were there. For example, the lie that woman are just as strong as men in the same way men are strong. Being told I couldn't do something because I was too weak was incredibly offensive to me. So I heard a godly women comment about her being the weaker one in her marriage and found myself completely taken back. She wasn't saying this in a way to devalue herself in any way. (Now realize I believe woman have strength, but it's different than a man's strength). So I began to question my strong reaction to the comment. Why am I offended when a man or woman suggests I shouldn't carry a heavy box because I'm a woman? I started to look at the facts. I'm five feet tall. My thigh is about the thickness of some men's biceps. Even a small man is generally quite a bit bigger than me. Hmm. It seems that I am "weaker." And yet it is SO hard for me to accept. When I come to something that I find hard to accept I tend to default to, well I just need to let the Lord speak to me (generally a very good default). But I was horrified as I realized how deeply rooted this lie was as I asked myself, what if God tells me that women are weaker, can I receive this from the Lord. Oh have mercy on me Lord. It took a process of me receiving God's grace to receive what He wants to tell me, to be ok with accepting this. Even now I'm not yet to a point where I won't have to remind myself to not be offended if a guy graciously tells me not to carry the heavy box. I share this particular example because it is one that I find most ridiculous when I really think about it. It shouldn't be hard for me to accept that my five foot self is naturally not as strong as most men. (The problem is that society had connected the lie to a lie about value and worth...but I won't go into that at the moment.)

Despite how obnoxious it is to realize the stupid lies that I hadn't realized infiltrated my life, I'm excited to let the Lord teach me about being a godly woman. Because in much lesser extremes, I see that most Christian woman have excepted things from society that weren't from God. I want to be confident in who God says I am, and I want to be open to whatever that is. You see I'm excited because I've had a taste of the freedom that comes with knowing the role that God has created for you and only having to worry about fulfilling that role instead of trying to fulfill all sorts of roles that others try to put on you. I've seen this play out in other areas of my life, but I've even had a chance to taste it in being a woman.

 While I was in Japan I had a southern guy friend. As I got to know him I immediately realized that his perception of men and women was different, and he was treating me out of his understanding of who men and women are. I took it as a cultural difference, and after fighting my feminist inclinations initially in our friendship, I began to just let it be his culture and go with it. I didn't take offense when he told me to carry the light box because I wasn't that strong. He used those words, but somehow they rolled off because I deemed them cultural, but really more so because I knew that in his mind they made me no less valuable or capable.

 In retrospect I found a lot of freedom in that friendship because I was not expected to be a man, or understand a man, or fend for myself because I'm just as capable as a man and don't need a man. I was free to have emotions. I was free to let myself be looked out for and have the heavy objects carried for me. I was free to not try to prove myself just as valuable and capable. There were defined differences, that were simply differences and suggested nothing about my worth or ability. I don't know how to explain the freedom that this brought. Because I just received it as a culture difference to accept, I was able to experience a taste of the freedom that comes from understanding what my role is.

 So now I journey with the Lord to let Him reveal to me who He has created me to be. I let Him give me my value and worth based on who He is and what He's given me, not based on me at all. I let Him show me the lies the have seeped in unknowingly and be set free by His truth. Should be a fun journey.

Trust and Cars

Have you ever heard that phrase, "Put God in the driver seat of your car?" It's made sense to me. Let God have control. I'm not sure that's the best picture though.

My house sits on a busy street. We often have a lot of cars in our driveway, parked in every crevice leaving very little concrete visible. The other day I needed to get out but was sandwiched between a few cars leaving what felt like only inches to maneuver in. My friend stood outside my car guiding me out. The process was rather tedious as I'd move a few inches in one direction to then be able to move a few more inches another direction. So I sat in my car as my friend directed me to turn my wheels a little more to the right or left and back up then go forward. The process was slow, but mostly because each time he told me to drive I'd looked at what I could see and said, "I feel like I'm going to hit the car," and then slowly followed the directions he was giving me. As I very slowly progressed out of my parking spot my friend looked at me and said with a bit of exasperation, "Do you trust me?" What a silly question I thought as I answered, "Yes..sigh" and thought, "that's why I'm still driving like you say." In retrospect, I trusted, but the level of my trust compared to what my brain said the situation was, caused me to drive very slowly and hesitantly. I never hit one of the other cars and as I drove off I began to think about the situation. My friend had a different perspective than I did. I could not see what he was seeing. What I could see was that it looked a lot like I was going to hit a car. I could not see the reality he saw. Hmmm a bit like me and God I do believe.

God gives me the authority of my life, but tells me that it will be best for Him and for me if I follow His directions. I was the one driving the car. I had the power to move it, but I needed my friend to tell me how to get out of my parking space and then I had to trust his directions. God knows the beginning from the end. He knows every detail of every circumstance. He can give me much better directions than the ones I can come up with from my perspective.

The Bible talks about us going from glory to glory. God gives us revelations about one thing. We start to catch on to something about Him and then He begins to show us something new. So where I am at is a place where God is saying I have things for you to do, but right now you need to trust and act upon the little things I'm telling you. I could have just decided to sit in my parking spot, but I wouldn't have been able to go anywhere. I would have been safe, and no car would have been dented, but that would have been dumb considering there was somewhere for me to go, and someone who could get me out so I could go there, I just had to trust.

Maybe that's where you're at. I've been there. You look around and say, it's too big of a risk, from my perspective it doesn't look safe. I'll just stay here in this safe spot. Maybe you tried to start to get out, but gave up when it seemed impossible. But it just so happens that God has places for you to go and if you will trust in what He sees, you will be safely taken out of your "safe" spot and made available for the new things God has for you.

Or maybe you are waiting for someone else to move their car when in reality they don't need to. What you see tells you that things are not in place for you to do that thing God has told you about. When in God's reality, from His perspective, everything is in place for you to do what He's asking. You are just waiting for your seen reality to match up and wasting your time waiting for the right time that is actually already there.

Will we move when God says, trust that He sees what we don't, and take what feels like a risk and begin to move according to His direction? It's one thing to say, "Here God, you drive." and a totally different one to listen when He says, "Ok let's go, everything is ready, just trust my directions."

Faith is believing what is unseen. If you can see it, it doesn't require faith. But faith is not foolish or blind because you're faith is not to reside in a circumstance or outcome, it is to reside in God, the faithful one.

I sure do appreciate how patient God is though. There are times when I sit in the car and keep asking, "Are you sure God? Are you sure I won't hit the other car? Are you sure I'm safe?" And He keeps reassuring me. Then when I begin to follow His directions and drive, I drive hesitantly and slowly, reminding Him, "this looks crazy God, but I'm going to do it." He's incredibly patient, but how much more effective would I be, and how much more quickly could I reach a destination if I'd trust and drive with confidence.

God is great. I just needed to get out of my driveway, and God totally took my experience and said, "Now let's learn a little something about trust. Daughter, do you trust me? We've got some things to do, let's get a move on."