Saturday, December 17, 2011

The beauty within Women!

What does being feminine mean to you? Is it something negative or great? Do you imagine some silent girl who never causes a disturbance or do you see someone who is comfortable in herself, yet still graceful in her approach to life. I began pondering this myself after a guy commented on how attractive feminism is to guys. It all started with the comment of how guys like girls who wear skirts. My first response was to inform them of how hard it would be to wear a skirt all of the time. Being men, I figured they needed to understand the hardship we ladies have.... :) Anyway though as it continued they discussion it was obvious that they did not expect us to wear skirts all the time or have a baby on our hip constantly. They simply saw feminism as beautiful. I wondered why. I mean that is so opposite our culture. Our culture says women are to fight for their rights, stand strong, never back down, do everything better than a man, and all in all show who is boss. Is this feminism? In my mind, no. I have discussed submission on here before. They kind of go together. Here is the thing... God made us a certain way and no matter how hard we try to change it His way is going to work better no matter what. His way is beautiful and perfect. I choose to rest in that. With that said, what does God's idea of a feminine woman look like? What do you think? I really began to pray about this and look into God's word and see what it says. There are some obviously strong verses about how women are suppose to dress and act. I considered those and I also considered being culturally relevant. Since then I have realized that there is a balance. Such as the skirt comment. No, guys do not expect girls to wear skirts all the time, but they do find it attractive. Are we to be silent and never share our opinion? No. We shouldn’t be loud and always have to have the final say though either. There are lines that can be pushed, but the bottom line is that God made women to be a man’s helpmeet and a man was not made to cook, clean, birth babies, or care for people with tenderness. Yes, they can do those things (except for the birthing of course!) and women can do the same exact things that men can. Is this natural though? Is it beautiful? Is it empowering? No. I firmly believe it is not. Yes, I can check my oil, take my trash out, pump my own gas and many other things just like a guy. I'm here to tell you though that if a guy offers to do it I will let him. I do not have to prove I'm better than him.

So why am I saying this? I want to encourage you to embrace your feminism. Enjoy being a woman! If you enjoy fishing, hunting, sports and other things like that go for it! Enjoy life. Do not neglect or degrade the gift you have of being a lady though. Get dressed up sometime. Take pride in cooking and taking care of the men in your life. Women seek to find what their "Purpose in life" is while all the time it is right before them. We are to support the men in our lives whether it be dad, husband, etc. Now again, do not get me wrong... We women are strong and we can succeed in whatever we set our mind to! I'm convinced that God gave us women secret powers that only women have! We can do 9,000 at one time and do each one of them well. That has to be a super power. :) In our battle to succeed though we cannot lose sight that God created us as females to be feminine. It was His perfect and holy design. Let's do our best to not mess that up!

JEN


Friday, December 9, 2011

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Child Like Faith


Hi Gals! :) I wanted to share a story today that has really touched my heart and I’ve been thinking about it a lot... If you do not know I teach kids and babysit often. I teach Sunday school, children’s church, and Sunday night discipleship at my home church and so I have a good chance to get to know the kids. Well there are these two boys who are brothers that come pretty regularly. It never fails that when we ask for prayer request they say their dad who is in jail. In all honesty it gets old sometimes bc I feel like we go over the same thing every week. Last week I decided to dig a little deeper and to ask some questions about their dad. Come to find out he has been in jail for over three years and most likely has about that many left. I asked if they ever got to see him thinking maybe they go every so often and that’s why he is on their mind. No, they have not seen him since he has been in jail. No cards, letters, anything. The further we talked about it the more I became amazed at how strong their faith was in God. Here are two kids (7 and 8) who have not seen or heard from their dad in years (they would have been 4 and 5 when he was arrested) and know full well that they won’t for many more years yet they still continue to ask God to help their dad. If they were any older they would most likely have hard feelings towards him and just hopelessness about the situation. Although they do not... They still trust that God is going to work and although they do not understand the situation they trust that God is going to work. So, I want to ask you.... what is going on in your life that you are having a hard time trusting God with? You may have been praying for something for a long time and it seems like it will never happen. Do you have faith like a child? Next time you question whether you should keep praying or not remember these boys and how not a prayer goes by that they do not pray for their dad. Don’t. Give. Up. With God ALL things are possible! I encourage you to keep on praying and believing!

JEN

P.S. Here are some pics of my kids just bc I think they are adorable!! :)