Honest moment:
Do you want to know what really (and I mean really) grinds my gears?
Watching women battle women. FOR ABSOLUTELY NO VALID REASON.
We've all experienced it, probably over and over. We've gotten good at it, us women. It's become sneaky and abrasive and uglier and uglier.
The publicizing of sacrifices to impress others, using oneself as the standard for others' performance, professing love but acting in cruelty, delighting in debate rather than dialogue, loving to impose opinions on others as absolute truth, wounding with words and wounding with passive action.
The whole thing makes me cringe, and I am just over it. On all levels.
I expressed my frustration yesterday to several mommas, and the discussions that ensued were some of my favorites. Conversations of vulnerability, of eternal riches and rewards, of grace.
And I have some thoughts about it all.
See, here's the thing: I'm surrounded by a plethora of people day in and day out with all kinds of issues. Some of them physical, some of them emotional, some of them spiritual, some of them on a level I can't even begin to understand.
and I'm sick and tired of so many women falling victim to the "women war."
I'm sick and tired of hearing that women feel rejected because of the size of their pants, the size of their house, the size of their family, the size of their callings, the size of their work.
I see it, hear it, feel it... all.the.time.
Women that are brushed off because they can't or don't or won't fit into someone else's box.
Women who can't make their faith fit neatly and nicely into their heads and into bullet points on Sunday mornings, but let their Jesus-life roll over into their exposed closets and messy stories.
Women who feel like they have to fit into an "appropriate" category: mommy blogger, size small, housewife, career woman, mother, retiree.
I hear all of this, and my heart hurts. We were created in the image of God, and we are so much more than the tasks we perform every day, the number on our jeans, and the size of the mortgage check sent out every month.
I look around at women, scarred and banged up and brave and still standing, and I have a burning and pressing desire to see them sing their song a little louder. Because they sing it well.
We have this incredible opportunity to sing out an uncontainable song showcasing the sisterhood of women, saying NO to insecurity and NO to comparisons and NO to neat little boxes. Our lives have the opportunity to break the mundane refrain and see the world reverberate with a truth that rolls like thunder.
Our God is the God of Hagar. He is the One who sees.
Our God is the God who told countless stories about women, stories that were messy and large and full of color. Stories about the woman who is trampled to get a glimpse of His face, about the woman in her house seeking and finding the Kingdom of God, of the prostitute being fiercely protected and assured.
Our God is the God who fights for us, fights for the woman who won't walk away from the unjust judge, who will not walk away from the call, the plea, the women who never give up- and He says she is honored and His, the woman who continues, who gives, who believes in grace.
Our God is the God who loves and wants our best, no matter the sacrifice. Just like the woman, the widow, who walked into the temple, and gave the very smallest of coins. and it was enough.
Our God. He praises the woman who did what she could. The woman who gave everything she had in the small and the sacrificed, and He said it was everything and He deems it large.
This is who we are. It's who are meant to be.
We are women who want the things that God wants. More than we are afraid of it.
We are the women who know and respond when the love of Jesus motivates, pressing into the Holy Spirit and releasing all fear.
We are the women who know real joy is not found in having the best of everything, but rather in trusting that God's making the best of everything.
We are the women who make our lives about the cause of Christ, not the applause of man.
We are the women who live to shout out truth, not to impress our FB/insta/twitter friends.
We are women whose hearts beat not to make our presence known, but to make Christ's presence tangible.
We are the women who know it's not all about us. but it IS all about Jesus.
We are the women who can have dirty hair and messy floors, the women who can have perfect hair and vacuum lines, the women who are a size two and the women who are a size twenty-two, the women who work full-time at home or full time at the office, the women who are soft-spoken and women who are, well, not.
We can break this mold of cruelty and battle among women.
We can claim belonging, and let that belonging spill over into shocking, radiant love.
We are women, and it's time to stop acting like girls.
Girls rival. Women revive.
Girls empale. Women empower.
Girls compare. Women champion.
We were made to peace makers and freedom shakers.
So you can take your glossy little Vogue covers and go ahead and use them for window washing because our standard of beauty far exceeds what is painted as perfection. Our standard of beauty is raw, real, and genuine, and has absolutely nothing to do with the pant size or hair color.
So, today, I am asking. Asking that as women, we begin to stand and sing an anthem with breaking free abandon. An anthem that binds us together instead of pins us against one another.
A simple anthem, one that starts in the hidden corners of each brain and in the deep places of each heart.
Jesus takes all of me.
Maybe when we get to that place in our own lives, we will begin to pour it back out on others.
Believing with great hope today that I will see this in my day. An army of mighty warriors coming together with one purpose, and one heart.
