Submission is a sacred thing. It is holy. It is a spiritual act of worship.
It is hard for me remember that when guys make jokes about how it means I have to do what they say because I'm a woman. Even if I know the guys don't mean it. (Shouldn't we mean what we say?)
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"Isn't it comforting," I say, "that true beauty isn't primarily external? Otherwise it would peak and then be gone."
"When you find a man who thinks that way," says Jennifer, "marry him."
Holly says not many guys do think like that. She says she sees lots of women with gentle and quiet spirits, but that there aren't many men around who are interested.
Eventually, as in all church people conversations about modesty in dress, somebody brings up the inevitable hackneyed phrase: "Men are visual." It is said as though there is nothing to do about it, as though that is how it is and we can't expect any more than that.
I wonder how easy it is for most women to develop a gentle and quiet spirit. I know it isn't easy for me. It isn't easy to live like Christ, or even (some days) to want to live like Christ. But I'm pressing on.
Are we, women of the faith, pressing on alone?
This is what I despise about talk of "hotness": that fire consumes with nothing left. A few years, and it is gone. Small comfort being "hot" would be, knowing that it always, always cools. Small respect for guys who emphasize spark over substance...my spark is sputtery and my substance is more me and my skin is thin.
I am in the refiner's fire, which will burn for my whole life and render me more and more beautiful in the eyes of God with each passing year, through wrinkles and creaky joints and greying hair and all. I am a woman blazing and have no time to waste on mere heat.
The conference leader all those months ago made a list of qualities women looked for in their "fantasy men," and then a corresponding list of things men looked for in their "fantasy women," and the lists showed totally opposite ideals. How is it even possible to bridge such a gap?
"When you find a man who thinks that way," says Jennifer, "marry him."
Holly says not many guys do think like that. She says she sees lots of women with gentle and quiet spirits, but that there aren't many men around who are interested.
________________________________________________________
Eventually, as in all church people conversations about modesty in dress, somebody brings up the inevitable hackneyed phrase: "Men are visual." It is said as though there is nothing to do about it, as though that is how it is and we can't expect any more than that.
I wonder how easy it is for most women to develop a gentle and quiet spirit. I know it isn't easy for me. It isn't easy to live like Christ, or even (some days) to want to live like Christ. But I'm pressing on.
Are we, women of the faith, pressing on alone?
________________________________________________________
This is what I despise about talk of "hotness": that fire consumes with nothing left. A few years, and it is gone. Small comfort being "hot" would be, knowing that it always, always cools. Small respect for guys who emphasize spark over substance...my spark is sputtery and my substance is more me and my skin is thin.
I am in the refiner's fire, which will burn for my whole life and render me more and more beautiful in the eyes of God with each passing year, through wrinkles and creaky joints and greying hair and all. I am a woman blazing and have no time to waste on mere heat.
________________________________________________________
The conference leader all those months ago made a list of qualities women looked for in their "fantasy men," and then a corresponding list of things men looked for in their "fantasy women," and the lists showed totally opposite ideals. How is it even possible to bridge such a gap?
We need Someone who has experience with bridges.
1 comment:
These thoughts you shared are intensely personal and so deep and so beautiful. Hang on to that vow about not bowing to anyone who doesn't look like Him ... but AFTER you marry, there will be many many times, even if married to the very best of men, that you will have to break that vow in order to look like Him yourself! I've been praying for a man who loves the Lord intensely, follows Him with all of his heart, to come into your life and be blessed by such a person as you!
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