The Fight’s Not Over: Women of the Faith Called to Action

I missed Kay Arthur’s message at the True Woman Conference.  (That savvy little thing in black boots cannot possibly be 76 years old!) It sounds like I probably missed the most inspiring message (though they all were).  Here is a snapshot from the True Woman Blog of her call to women:

“Kay began the evening by painting a picture of the grave danger our society is in, and telling us that if we’re going to act, it needs to be now, and it would have been better if we’d started yesterday.  She doesn’t point the finger at the world, but at the church. We are to blame for not knowing and proclaiming the Truth of the Word of God.

‘It’s not over, because I’m here. And you’re here. It begins with us—with women who know God. We have to be absolutely convinced that God says what He means and means what He says . . . To know God is to know His Word.’

Kay concluded with seven steps we each need to take, all from the book of Nehemiah:

1. Look at what’s broken, and what needs to be repaired.
2. Go to God and ask if you need to help with that particular repair. The first thing you need to do is sit down. Stop running around being busy. Sit down and weep over the situation. Let your heart be broken over the things that break His heart. Confess your sin. Fast and pray.
3. Ask God how you’re going to do it. Ask for success. Do it even if you’re afraid. Enlist others who see the need. You cannot do it alone.
4. Don’t be distracted or derailed by opposition without or opportunists within. The enemy doesn’t want you to rebuild. Don’t get derailed or discouraged.
5. Fear God and not man. Don’t be afraid. Fight for your brothers, sisters, husbands, houses, and communities.
6. Stay in constant communication with God.
7. Don’t let down your guard. Hold to God’s standard and deal with evil.

‘I believe if you’re not hearing something,” Kay said, “it’s because you’re not listening.’ ”

God’s Glory is Displayed Through GENDER

I almost had to leave the auditorium, retreat to a quiet place, and process the profound revelation I had never seen that Mary Kassian revealed from that familiar passage in Genesis:

“She shall be called ‘woman’ because she was taken out of man.” Genesis 2:23

We skip right over it and miss what God is revealing here.  Some of us even desecrate His very nature in our misunderstanding.

Paint it anyway you like, champion the philanthropic nature of feminism, but underneath all that it is rooted in the rebellion against God’s perfect, created design.

That verse in Genesis is not just about a man and woman being created to live together. It was God’s crowning work with which He announced to the world all the fullness of His glory.  He’s too big to be revealed in one human being.  It is VERY important that we understand that without the distinct characteristics in man and woman, meant to reveal Himself through the union of the two in marriage, we only see a part of who God is.

“She shall be called ISHA, for she was taken out of ISH.”

Now here it is:

“Isha” comes from a Hebrew word meaning “soft“, while “Ish” comes from the word meaning “strength“.  Now remember, God had said, “Let us make man in our image”.  Adam at first embodied the whole image of God.  (Even the word translated “man” in the first part of the verse has a different meaning than what we see after Eve was created.)  Literally, God took the feminine nature out of Adam and embodied that in a new creation.  God was screaming to Adam, and to us:

“You can only fully understand Me by looking at the totality of Who I am through gender.”

The reason marriage is the illustrated picture of Christ and His bride is because it is the only way two distinctly different beings can come together and join as one flesh, representing the completed picture of who God is.

Is that not mind-blowing?

And when we embrace this uniqueness, celebrating our differences, we say to God, “It is very good”.

But when we bristle at and blur these differences we raise a fist and say, “It is not good”.

And the picture gets clearer…man reflects God’s “going out” power (even in the basic anatomy and events of reproduction), while woman reflects His “receiving” power in her anatomy and her ability to house and nourish life.

This is why homosexuality is an abomination to Him.  This is why a rejection of the gift of reproduction fails to display His glory.  This is why an egalitarian view of marriage makes a mockery of Him. This is why when we balk at the “warrior” nature of man and the “nurture” nature of woman we act foolishly.  It’s all Him!

Do you get this?

Makes me want to shout.

Speak well of God with your femininity.

True Woman

We are having a great time at the True Woman conference.  I’ve already met some of you and it has been so neat to see real faces and hug real bodies!

I’m sitting now in bed, eating dark chocolate and my blogging friend Kathy is in the other bed with her laptop (I just emailed her…how pathetic is that? )  The other friend with us happens to be a reader I met a while back providentially through a mutual friend who is now my own dear friend!

I’ve gleaned so much from the fabulous teaching this weekend and I’ll probably be able to formulate several posts after I process it all.

What this conference is about, in a nutshell, is an attempt to ignite a “counter-cultural revolution” to combat what the feminist movement has done to families.  Given the very real power God gave women concerning their husbands and children, it’s a pretty safe statement to say, “As goes the woman, so goes the culture”. The enemy knows that and has largely used lies of that movement to effect destruction of the home.  What we need is women who, to paraphrase Mary Kassian, “are willing to love God enough to do things His way”.

Yes, that’s the snapshot version and there are lots of other factors involved in our culture’s demise, but revisiting God’s design, which includes the mysterious power of woman, evokes fear and trembling in my heart, and brings me to my knees, begging the Lord to preserve me and keep me and empower me to fulfill the beautiful design He has for me–the design that will reveal His glory in my home and extend to the culture.

Yes, Lord, I want to be a true woman.

A Godly Woman: Sober and Self-controlled

I want to be more “sober-minded”.

“Wow, Kelly, that’s great.  Who cares.”

I knew you’d want to hear more

I usually don’t pay much attention to those verses about being “sober”.  And if I’m not mistaking, “sober” in the Bible never refers to “not drunk”; it is always a reference to one’s character.

Have you ever met a woman who just had control over her spirit, in every way?  She was not fearful, not boisterous, not crude, not overly-emotional—she wore an air of serenity about her, making even those around her feel calm.

That’s what I imagine it means to be sober, according to Scripture.  In fact, the Greek meanings involved these two definitions:

“to exercise self control, to curb one’s passions”

Compiling all the different definitions of a virtuous woman from Scripture, we continuously get a picture of a calm, controlled woman.  The Proverbs 31 woman is “clothed with dignity” and “opens her mouth with wisdom“.

The New Testament picture is a woman with a “meek and quiet spirit“.   SPIRIT.  This isn’t a  picture of a mealy-mouthed woman who is insecure and bound by intimidation, like some would define her.  This is a woman whose strength is her anchor, no matter what storms life brings her.

Isn’t it easy to just forget that Scripture actually defines what character qualities we should be cultivating?  And not just for ourselves, but what we should be teaching the younger women and our daughters?  I think it’s so interesting to compare the culture’s definition of a strong woman to the biblical one.  How often are we bent on indulging our flaws under the culturally accepted guise of “this is who I am, like it or leave it“?

Or are we looking to what is the norm for measuring ourselves?

Do we glory in our unique, created personalities?  Absolutely!  But where our personalities give way to sin, I believe we are called to “take every thought captive”.

Furthermore, what do my fears and excessive worries say about my faith in Him who knows and provides for all my needs, the sovereign One “in whose book all the days were written when as yet there were none of them”?

What do my complaints and frustrations reveal about my heart?  Am I basking in gratitude for the abundant blessings around me?  Or am I a wandering child through wilderness, overlooking His miraculous protection and goodness?

Boy, I need to go and repent now

I can only think of one way to be transformed, and that is by “the renewing of the mind”.  Unfortunately, we are not “magically” transformed as believers.  We are endowed with the power of the Holy Spirit to be transformed, but the work on our part is very real and active.

REnewing involves the act of “over and over”.  This is important to remember!

It begins with a need to understand what the Bible says about how we should live, what traits we should be pursing.  Then a daily meditation on, maybe a particular passage at a time, and a prayerful position that causes our minds to be constantly turned toward Heaven, even while our bodies are busy on earth.

It’s funny every time I think about it.  Modern woman says that we have been weak throughout history.  But I personally think it is rare to see a modern woman exhibit the kind of strength and nobility painted from God’s Word.  I want to be that woman.

Caution: Blood-Boiling, Feminist TRUTH Ahead

(I know it’s a bit long…read it anyway.)

Oh boy…after repeated accusations that I get my anti-feminist ideas from “pre-50′s” literature and Google searches for “feminism is bad”, I decided to do an open-minded search for these new claims of modern feminism.  The claims that “old feminism was hostile to men and family, but NEW feminism is all about choice and respect of that choice…that motherhood is a perfectly honorable “choice”, as long as it’s not the only one”.  That should soften my ideas a bit, huh?

WRONG!!!  My blood was boiling after just a few news stories…and I only had room to post a smidgen of the stuff I found.  It’s hard for me to fathom that these conclusions were made by someone who claims to be educated.  Now I know what the Bible means about the “wisdom of the world being foolishness”.

Feminism does one thing REALLY well…LIE.  And they continue to.  Yes, some feminists thought their previous agenda too judgmental, so they have opted to use softer terms like “choice” to make all women feel included.  Well in truth, that is not the feminist agenda–never was, never can be.  They are still about belittling the family, the role of marriage and motherhood–they hate “choice”, and on the destruction goes. Read carefully and stay tuned to the bottom of the page for the “solution”:

Linda Hirshman asks:  “More and more women are leaving the workforce to stay home and raise kids. Has feminism failed?”  (If you listen, the question itself reveals the heart of feminism.)

“In interviews, women with enough money to quit work say they are “choosing” to opt out. Their words conceal a crucial reality: the belief that women are responsible for child-rearing and homemaking was largely untouched by decades of workplace feminism. 

The family — with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks — is a necessary part of life, but it allows fewer opportunities for full human flourishing than public spheres like the market or the government.

Women who want to have sex and children with men as well as good work in interesting jobs where they may occasionally wield real social power need guidance, and they need it early.

Step one is simply to begin talking about flourishing. In so doing, feminism will be returning to its early, judgmental roots. This may anger some, but it should sound the alarm before the next generation winds up in the same situation. Next, feminists will have to start offering young women not choices and not utopian dreams but solutions they can enact on their own. Prying women out of their traditional roles is not going to be easy. It will require rules — rules like those in the widely derided book The Rules, which was never about dating but about behavior modification.

• So the first rule is to use your college education with an eye to career goals.

 

• If you are good at work you are in a position to address the third undertaking: the reproductive household. The rule here is to avoid taking on more than a fair share of the second shift…When couples marry, the amount of time that a woman spends doing housework increases by approximately 17 percent..to avoid this kind of rut, you can either find a spouse with less social power than you or find one with an ideological commitment to gender equality. Taking the easier path first, marry down.  (emphasis mine)..Rhona Mahoney recommended finding a sharing spouse by marrying younger or poorer, or someone in a dependent status, like a starving artist.

 

• If these prescriptions sound less than family-friendly, here’s the last rule: Have a baby. Just don’t have two (can you hear me going “AGHHHHHH!”)….women who opt out for child-care reasons act only after the second child arrives. A second kid pressures the mother’s organizational skills, doubles the demands for appointments, wildly raises the cost of education and housing, and drives the family to the suburbs.  It is true that if you follow this rule, your society will not reproduce itself.  (!!!  She’s educated, people!)

“Why do we care?  We care because what they do is bad for them, and is certainly bad for society.”

“At feminism’s dawning, two theorists compared gender ideology to a caste system. To borrow their insight, these daughters of the upper classes will be bearing most of the burden of the work always associated with the lowest caste: sweeping and cleaning bodily waste.”  (My note:  There you have it:  the feminists summation of raising the next generation–forget life-changing impacts, shaping characters and destinies, building strong minds and lives–just cleaning up bodily waste.)  

From America’s Stay-at-Home Feminists, Linda Hirshman

 

This article even spewed the stupidity that if a mother’s income is only enough to pay for child care, it is “incorrect to say she would be better staying home”.  The author said the fair assessment is to combine the total household income, and subtract childcare, leaving the total household profit.  There…that should make us all feel better, shouldn’t it? (ditzy voice:  ”I went to Harvard and I’m very good at math.”)  Because the MAIN thing is to stay away from home and the children.

In a nutshell, feminism is nothing more than a ME religion.  It dismisses what is best for any person, now or later, besides ME.  It even dismisses the reality of a total, societal-self-destruction…as long as I can do what I want to do right now; after all, I’ll be dead when it all hits the fan.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go put my hair out.  It may cause me to go into labor.

I had to add this clip of Hirshman for a little comic relief…I think you’ll enjoy it.

Former Feminist Applauds Michelle Obama…. “Women Can Make Husband/Family Successful By Leaving Her Career”

Michelle Obama has created more than a few feminist waves by making the decision to leave her $273,000 career in order to support her husband and family.  She said she wants to

” — feminists hold on to your hats — be a mother, a wife and to support her husband in every way she can in his job as President….She is, perhaps, the perfect example of a new kind of career woman who, instead of wanting it all for herself, wants it all for her family.”   from Mail Online

Feminist Bonnie Erbe sheds a telling light on true feminist thought in her response (and they tell me feminists are just for “whatever women want”???):

“I think it is a sad state of affairs that Americans are more comfortable with a non-threatening first lady than with a career woman, but it is also a stereotype that screams to be abolished. Michelle Obama is just the person who could have done it, but she decided against it. Instead, she caved into advisors’ demands (My note:  I’m doubting the validity of this statement).

The truth is, until that stereotype becomes history, all women will suffer less power and clout in the workplace.”

But Michelle has had some applauding too.  I’m so encouraged to see others FINALLY taking notice of what is so logical in the success of a healthy family, and actually being bold enough to say it!

Megan Basham uses the first lady as an example in her book called “Behind Every Successful Man”…

“The title is not just a trite twist on the familiar concept behind every successful man; it has much greater meaning than that. Basham argues that by using all your talents, skills, education and qualifications, you can make your husband’s career a stellar success, and your family life spectacularly happy.”

 And listen to this…

“…the best of both worlds–a woman enjoying using her honed professional skills (read:  gifts and abilities) to enhance her husband’s career, but at the same time having the freedom and pleasure of spending more time with her children.”

It gets even better…

“Basham, an American author, dyed-in-the-wool feminist and successful career woman earning significantly more than her husband, explains it this way:

‘What my friends had in common is that they left school planning to spend most of their adult years working in their chosen fields, and expecting always to derive a lot of satisfaction from their careers.

‘Several years ago, I started to notice that among many of us, as other areas of our lives expanded, the enjoyment we derived from our jobs began to shrink. Work began to seem more like an intrusion on our real lives than a vital part of it.’

She and her successful career girlfriends wanted to spend more time enjoying being mothers and wives. But there was a financial imperative as they were all fully paid-up members of the two-income economy.

We realised we had to start looking at our dilemma from a new angle, and to start seeing our marriages as our own little business enterprises and our husbands as partners in that enterprise.’

Makes you wanna shout “Amen–it’s what we’ve been saying all along!”

Basham said she really began to see things differently after reading about John Adams and his wife, Abagail.

“I was fascinated by the relationship between Adams and his wife. He relied on her in almost every aspect of his work — and in the midst of the goal-setting and strategic planning they wrote each other intimate, teasing and tender love letters that revealed the sweet partnership they had in all things….

Her strength, confidence, intelligence and eloquence were nearly as significant to her husband’s success as his own were. Adams so clearly valued his wife’s insight, and cherished her companionship, that there could be no question of her being anyone’s lackey.’

They eventually grew to become ‘almost one soul in two bodies’.

In a word, Basham’s tells women they have the power to make their husbands successful or to cause them failure.  By seeing his potential and nurturing that instead of his weaknesses, she can be a partner in a very successful enterprise. 

An enterprise…I submit that it’s really difficult to share the same enterprise when you are both solely devoted to entirely different enterprises, no?

Because, and GET THIS–it’s not about “his success vs. my success”…not when you understand what God said at the beginning… “the two shall become one“.  And live that way.   It’s about OUR success as a family; the cogs and wheels working together to create one operation that functions correctly.

That’s how to get your cake and eat it too!

“A woman must share her husband’s love with his work and the fire of his spirit, or make him a thing not lovable.”    ~J.R.R. Tolkien

Excerpts taken from Mail Online