Femininity
We’ve come of age in revolutionary times when women are making more decisions than ever before. Unlike our mothers and grandmothers, we’re buying houses on our own, heading up corporations, and working on cures for cancer. We’re fixing dinner, soothing a crying baby, and teleconferencing a board meeting all at the same time. We’re wearing hard hats and work gloves so often that hardware companies are designing tools specifically for women. In many ways, this is a fabulous time to be female. But it’s also a complicated time. In fact, without God’s guidance, it can get downright confusing.
I was reminded of that a few years ago when I read the book Love Has a Price Tag by Elisabeth Elliot. In it, she shared how she once gave her college students the unusual assignment of defining femininity in as few words as possible. Her description of how both male and female students struggled with the challenge intrigued me so much I took it on myself.
After searching and searching my heart and mind for an appropriate definition, I finally came up with an answer. Are you ready? Drum roll, please: Because we as women are fashioned wonderfully and uniquely by God, femininity is living in all the splendor of who God created us to be! Which brings us back to Eve.
The original first lady and our first biblical mentor, Eve, showed us that as women we are, above all, divinely created to be springs of life: to conceive, carry, bring forth, and nurture that which will enliven the world. God has woven into our DNA the capacity to give birth and to mothernot just physically but also spiritually. And as I’ve discovered both from the Bible and from experience, it’s a capacity we never lose.
Excerpted from The Blessed Woman by Debbie Morris
Daily Reflection: How have you embraced your God-given capacity to nurture?