Strong Women Pt. II

Our country's economy has been beyond horrible these last couple of years, causing mothers to venture out of the home and find jobs to provide income for their family. We also see a lot of men, usually involuntarily (layoffs), leaving their work place and becoming stay at home dads. There is a lot of controversy to this, men thinking that women need to stay home while they go out and provide. And they are absolutely right. Men are made to provide for their family, but that does not mean only by working for money. Men can provide in so many ways for their family. They can provide their time, their support, their talents, and their care. The Bible is not against women in the workplace. In fact, the famous Proverbs 31 woman was a working mother.

While I do not have any experience in marriage, except for the observing I've done of married couples surrounding me, I have spent a lot of time reading about marriage and contemplating how I want mine to be.

An illustration came to me the other day. I want my relationship with my future husband to be like a weight lifter and his spotter. My husband would be the weight lifter and I would always be his spotter. The ultimate goal for this diad would be for the weight lifter to lift all of the weight (go figure), but the interesting thing is that when the weight seems to be too much for the weight lifter and maybe his arms collapse from weakness, the spotter must be able to pick that weight up off of the weight lifter or the spotter's job is futile. Even though the weight lifter is the one known for his strength, the spotter has to be just as strong as the lifter, or else there is an extremely dangerous situation at hand.

I want to be a spotter.

Strong Women

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. - Colossians 3:18

Submit. This is a word that haunts many Christian women. The connotation of the word represents weakness and a comparison to a door mat. God does not want women to be door mats. He wants strong women, who live in His word and show the nurturing nature that He created them with.

As a young person, I really wish there were a different word to represent what this means. Submit is outdated, in my opinion. It may have been the right word, at a certain time, but people have given this word a bad meaning. It's very similar to the word "awful". "Awful", is actually supposed to mean something is "full of awe" which would make it good, but over time the word has changed to mean something atrocious or bad.

I'm not sure what word I would choose to replace "submit".

I might say, "Wives, become vulnerable to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord."

Or maybe, "Wives, support the ideas and goals of your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord."

Women are meant to be the perfect combination of beauty and strength.

Society, in my opinion, makes women feel bad for being a woman. It always hurt me when I was little to hear, "You throw like a girl" or "You can't play; you'd probably fall down and cry like a girl." They made me feel horrible for how I was born, so I developed a thick skin and started acting like a Tomboy.

Why don't we give girls a feeling importance? That they aren't just submissive doormats, but brilliant creations of God.

"Eve was not made from Adam's head to be above him, or from his foot to be trampled by him. She was made by his side to support him, under his arm to be cared for by him, and by his heart to be loved by him." - Joshua Harris Boy Meets Girl