Growing up, I thought girls were so….well…dumb. From a pretty early age I was raised to be independent and think for myself. I was allowed to question things, and challenge convention, and never ever settle for anything less than the best. Looking back, we were the weirdest homeschooled family ever. I mean, my mom wore shorts and cutoff t-shirts and shopped at downtown ghetto fruit markets, we played with the neighborhood boys in the street all day and dad still cursed (he’s gotten WAY better in the past few years since Caleb, at the ripe old age of 5, proclaimed to my mother’s shocked face at the dinner table one evening, “Mom, this food is damn good!”). Status quo challenged.
A plethora of other reasons brought me to this general state of disdain for all things “girly”. Wear a dress? No. Make-up? Sweating would make it run into my eyes. Cook? I’d spit in whatever I made if you forced me to. So I was obstinate, stubborn, and completely in refusal to acknowledge the fact that God gave me ovaries. If I could have rejected that fact altogether I’d have been sorely tempted.
I’ve carried this attitude all the way to age 21. I’ve gotten better, and God has brought me humongous distances in the area of femininity and what being a woman is. But that is another story for another time. What I was thinking about this summer, and especially the last few days is the part about girls that bothers me the most. To put it into words, I suppose I’d say it’s the part that makes girls fantasize over wedding color schemes, and pour over wedding dress catalogues, and spend 30 hours planning their attire for a 2 hour date, analyze every conversation they’ve had with him and try to discern his feelings and heart on the matter, go crazy over how they look, how much they weigh, why their hair is ugly, what makes them talk for hours about a guy and dream up the perfect relationship and throw a tantrum when he doesn’t notice her new dress, and kill herself trying to get his attention. This behavior, this desperate need to be wanted and relevant and desirable always bothered me. I’d generally just shudder with disgust and say “Girls are SO needy!” and then do my best to be the antithesis of everything a girl was in that regard.
But lately, God has been giving me a lesson in humility. And the best lessons in humility are the ones that make you realize that you are exactly like the people you are looking down on. I’m beginning to believe that women have this painful heart condition that makes us afraid of something. It shows up differently, but the root of the issue is identical in all. We tend to be controlling and clingy, using manipulation to get guys attention and doing anything and everything we can to keep it. We analyze, plan, scheme, and then do whatever it takes to be wanted. Needed. Worth their time. Why? Because we want companionship so badly. We want someone to do life with. Someone to walk with us and care, someone to be consistent, someone that wants to walk alongside us because they recognize the unique beauty God gave us and want to be part of what He’s doing.
And what are we afraid of? Call me nuts, that’s ok. The theory is still in the formation stages. But I think we’re afraid of exactly what happened to Eve. We’re afraid we’re going to be too much, bite off more than we can chew (literally haha) and when the hammer comes down, when the game is up, we look around at the one who was supposed to be there for us and he’s standing there with his hand outstretched, not in invitation but in accusation.
We’re afraid of being hung out to dry when we need him the most, of being left hanging and falling, of not being considered worth it for him to lay down his life. We’re afraid we won’t be worth his time, and that he won’t answer God’s call to love us more than himself. So we settle for trying to be good enough on our own, and we try to get attention because we don’t think we can get real love, we settle for catching his eye over catching his heart. And we become needy shadows because we have to, we do what it takes to survive and not be left behind.
God desires so much more for us. God desires things done right, and for us to live in truth, and never have anything less than everything He intended for us. God desires that we redefine what being a woman is, completely different than what society has made us become, or we ourselves have constructed. Thank God. He's calling us to more, to something greater, to living not in fear but in confidence because of what He's made and what He's done. We never have to live as shadows again
love this. raise that anthem!
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