Failure
Worthless
Insecure
Unappreciated
Discontent
Overwhelmed
Guilty
Out of control
Doubt
These emotions berate the average Christian woman day after day. No matter what stage of life we are in, I have learned, the relentless voices in our head tell us we are not enough and we are too much all at the same time.
I mean how can I be enough. Have you ever read Proverbs 31? Geesh… I need a nap after glancing over the list of her daily activities. She was buying, selling, cooking, sewing, feeding, managing and providing. She started before the sun came up and didn’t quit until it went back down. And she giggled while doing it. No electricity. No modern conveniences. No mention of a nap. People came to her for advice. Her husband thought she was amazing. Her children bragged on her. And her family’s reputation was spotless.
Um. That’s not me. I read that model for what we’ve made the Ideal Christian Woman and feel like a big, fat failure. The only thing that could make those verses worse for me is if she was a size 6. (Skinny girls, I love you and covet your flat stomachs.) The truth is, I don’t and can’t do all that stuff. I feel accomplished if I throw some frozen chicken in a crock pot and get a load of laundry put away in a day. Compared to her, I feel like I’m just not enough.
At the same time I feel like I’m not enough, I feel like I’m too much. I feel like no one can handle me. No one gets me. No one really knows me or would want me if they did really know me. I talk too much. I’m too loud. I’m too opinionated. I can’t be myself. I’m just too much.
Ladies, we punish ourselves because we aren’t a good enough mother or we aren’t a mother. We aren’t a good enough wife or we aren’t a wife yet. We feel guilty because we spend too much time at work or we feel stifled because we never get out of the house. We don’t do enough and we can’t say no to anyone. We can’t control our emotions yet we feel walled off from the world. We feel like we have no voice yet struggle to be submissive. We want to be heard but want to possess a gentle and quiet spirit.
At the end of the day achieving the Ideal Christian Woman status keeps slipping right through our fingers.
But what if there is no Ideal Christian Woman? What if there is just you?
What if God put a piece of himself, of his unique character, in you?
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed. Psalm 139:13-16
This week we are going to tackle some of these issues that leave us feeling empty and unsatisfied. Instead of becoming the Ideal Christian Woman, we are going to open the door to just becoming ideal Christian YOU!
The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life. -Jesus
