Monday 15 September 2008

Where's Our Place?

I'm currently reading Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot and I'm looking forward to share some excerpts that really stick out to me. This is one of the first parts that really caught my attention:

Women during the past decade have contrived to place themselves very much in the center of attention. They are talked about, puzzled about, argued about, and legislated about, and it is women who have done most of the talking, arguing, and perhaps the legislating, while it is men, I suppose, who have done more of the puzzling. A torrent of books about women has been pouring from the presses urging women to cast off traditional roles, to refuse the socialization that has for many centuries, they say, controlled and confined them, and to move into what some of them called "human" (as distinct from biological or reproductive) pursuits, which, whether they are interesting and uninteresting are said to be male territory.

My question is why is it that women cannot seem to accept, no, rather appreciate and love, who God has created them to be? We live in an age of feminism, where unless you, women, go to college or university and pursue a respectable career, are considered unsuccessful. It seems that being a housewife and raising children is of little value anymore. Many women get negative reactions when they speak of staying at home and homeschooling their children. They get remarks like "You're never going to make ends meet on a single income," or "How will your children ever learn to socialize?"

In this, I'm not discouraging obtaining a post-secondary education and pursuing a career, if that's what God calls you to do. But I feel we have lost sight of who God has created women to be. He has created us for a very special purpose that many seem to look down on. Women don't like the idea of being a weaker vessel, created under men, but God made us because it was not good for man to be alone. He saw that man needed someone and that someone was a woman. He indeed has a special place and purpose for us.

We don't need to step and try to prove ourselves. God has created me a woman, so that's exactly what I want to be. I don't want to try and make myself somebody I'm not, wearing a mask, living a life that's not my own. Let us not strive after this world's idea of success but rather who God has created us to be.

Please feel free to share any thoughts on this or throw in your two cents. God bless you!

2 comments:

  1. Margaret,

    You are so right when you women don't want to appreciate their God-given role. I recently read that the lesserness of women began with the Greeks and Romans, while the Jews had great honor for their women.

    Anyway, have you read So Much More? I'm not quite convicted of everything the Botkins say, but it is an excellent book.

    Maria Pauline

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  2. http://allseasonsoflife.blogspot.com/

    my new url.... Changed it, thought I would let you know....

    oh and good post here!

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