As we return home from a trip, I’m deep in thought today reflecting on this International Women’s Day. Just how far we have actually come as women?
As a woman and a mom, I see men who have been turned into couch potatoes and women trying to wear way too many hats trying to do things they were never meant to do. I see some women who are taking the “easy way out” by not fulfilling their calling but the calling of someone else.
I’m not looking to raise strong “women” or strong “men” for that matter. I’m looking to raise godly Christians who know where true strength comes from—God. That includes raising my children to know they are so very different from one another with different responsibilities and abilities.
As a woman and a mother, I’m raising my son to love and respect women like Christ loved the church, to value their contribution as well as the contribution of a woman. I want my son to realize and appreciate that he cannot make it without the gift of women in his life. I want him to not take advantage of, but to live in the fact that we women need his strength and leadership as he becomes the leader God called him to be. Realizing his potential as a God fearing man with different and wonderful qualities that are not always going to be equal to that of women…that’s one way we can move forward. I also want son to be sure not to let any woman or anyone walk all over him. He is a child of God, a son of The King. God has called him to be a warrior not a wimp.
I’m raising my daughters to be strong in their God-given abilities and gifts, to be smart enough to know that they also have qualities that are not always going to be equal to men. There will be things that realistically they can’t do and some things that they shouldn’t do whether they can or not. Then there are things they can do that no man will ever truly be able to accomplish. However, women need men and we can’t make it in this life without their contributions either.
Realizing how magnificently God created them as women and that it takes more strength living out the call of God than they will ever have living out the call of worldly feminism. They have a special place in God’s plan and nothing will ever change that. They can live in the plan or they can live outside the plan, but the plan will never change and living outside the plan is the easy way out.
My daughters and I don’t need a special day or special treatment to celebrate ourselves or to tear others down while the world attempts to lift us up, because everyday living for God is a day to celebrate men and women and the freedom He brings and to actually step into reality acknowledging our own strengths and weaknesses and the way men and women were not created to be equal in ability, but created in different ways that complement each other.
As a woman, I’m offended that my gender claims to be equal and in most cases superior to men. I’m ashamed that instead of rising above a high standard that my gender has stooped so low as to try to tear men down first so they can then climb all over them on their way to the top of something that is not even the goal or in the right direction. We claim we don’t need head starts or legs up, but we use our conniving minds to attain special treatment and to try to be our own gods. Women use their bodies to exploit their sexuality toward men to get what they want, yet we blame men for falling into our trap.
Let’s stop all of this ridiculous, tasteless, and divisive celebration of nonsense. It doesn’t make us more powerful, stronger, or better. It just makes us foolish and unintelligent because it shows how we’ve learned nothing from Eve. I’m so sad to say that we haven’t come a very long way. We’ve oppressed ourselves more than we will ever know, and we are so weak we can’t even see it.
Personally, I’ve never felt more oppressed than I have in the past several years in my life. This isn’t a result of my choicses but the way my gender has attempted to reshape God’s plan. It has affected my life and drug me kicking and screaming down a path I was not intended to go.
Thankfully I have God on my side. Nothing this world ever does can ultimately change His plan and His blessing for those who choose to walk in His way. I will always walk against the crowd and will not succumb to this chaos, and I’ll be stronger and better than you can ever dream. I’m just brokenhearted for my fellow women who have followed in the footsteps of Eve-I hate to see how weak they are becoming. God help us all.