On Sunday, our church gathering had an open-mic time for people to share things they wanted to see improved in their lives in 2020. Many voices spontaneously opened up, old and young. Interspersed among them were 4 young ladies, none of them older than 12 years, their little girl voices like feathers in the microphone. Yet there was a hush of genuine beauty, without an ounce of sand in it:
“I want people to know how unique and special they are.”
“A loving and caring heart.”
“I want peace on earth.”
“Less fighting and to love better.”
I heard the fledgling voices of nurturing mothers.
I’m listening to it again today, and I’m struck by how a cynical mind could dismiss, or even ridicule, the innocence and seeming “cute”ness of their voices.
But these young women were far from weak. They simply had no need to grind into a louder gear. They were not yet overcompensating for the hissing lies of their inner dialogue. They were not overcoming contempt for their identity. Their heart flowed purely and we, their family, were listening in full honor and reception. We didn’t call them cute or dismiss them as immature. We positioned ourselves to tune in.
We let them remind us of the culture of a healthy family, as true femininity always will. We let them call us up to encouragement and empowerment of one another. We let them remind us about our own hearts, to diligently tend the soil within us. We let them call us away from our divisions and battle axes unto a people who make peace and call up unity.
Femininity always has a gentle spirit. Always. Even when it is violently contending, even when it is making peace, even when it is doing war, giving birth, or dealing justice, it has softness in it that opens the spirit. These girls were puncturing a broken culture with intercession and vision, and there was not a bloody chest to be found. They battled and healed in the same breath.
Girls, this year, let’s remember to be His daughters first. In all our endeavors, all our “adult” plans and strategies, all our innermost poverties, let’s first be His—defined by Him, compelled by Him, sourced in Him, and made bold through Him. Let’s let who He created shine forth, and let the original power of that idea find its feet.
…un-live all that the world has celebrated of strong women who hide and deny the poverty within: impoverished, unmanaged,
rudderless souls.
Let’s un-live all that the world has celebrated of strong women who hide and deny the poverty within: impoverished, unmanaged, rudderless souls. Let’s lay down the grind, the sand, the I’m-like-this-so-that-men-will-take-me-seriously. (Spoiler alert: that strategy inevitably fails hard.) Our Father didn’t put that in us because we DON’T NEED IT. He has provided everything for our abundant living; where we have devalued or misunderstood those elements of ourselves, let’s repent and polish the silver. Stand not as androgynous, generic mannequins. BREATHE!
The earth (and true masculinity) knows the sound of His daughters–brilliant, empowered, influential women–and responds in partnership. Nothing that remains in us of the world’s -isms will get us where our souls long to go.
The map is within and has always been. Let’s let our little sisters remind us of that which our DNA already knows and is burning to reveal.
Diane Helman 