Sunday, August 14

we are.

[Last Wednesday, I went to a women's Bible study.  If you know me, you know that I'm cringing as I write this.  I wrestle with the idea of women.  I was raised in an environment where it was toxic to be honest, show emotion, or even be silly.  Being a woman was not celebrated- it was a weakness.

Wednesday was renewing to me.  To find that we can be exactly who we are, no apologies.  To come together and sit through life.  In the good and the bad and the stillness of being loved. We are.]

We sit around the table, each person a story that isn't over yet.

We bring in the luggage of our lives, our commitments, our worries, our celebrations.  We laugh, sharing silly tales and making cross-eyed faces.  We open our Bibles and read the stories, like they're the words to a song we love to have stuck in our heads.


We talk, breathe, whisper our dreams.

Do we have what it takes?

Are we worth it?

Do we have reason to be hopeful?

yes.
yes.
yes.

We are made in His image.

Every smile that turns up at the corners, every different shaped body, every sag of the shoulders.  Every voice that has its own melody.  Every girly-girl, every tomboy.  Every hippie, every quiet one.

Everyone who doesn't have a word that fits them.  Everyone who, at times, feels like too much and altogether not enough.

Each of them beautiful.
Each of them different.
Each of them His.


The collage of our lives is interesting- a mish mash of personalities and histories and backgrounds.  We come together to find the same thing.  There is a God who knows us and loves us.

We seek the God that calls us by name.  The one that created us from rib.  We believe the story is not a myth or a fairytale- it's reality.  We were created to create- whether it's families or homes or art or books.  Whether it's from a kitchen table or from an office desk-

We bring our lives.  We bring our hearts.


We are single, married, widowed.
We desire to be loved and respected and celebrated.
We are love songs and fight songs and everything-in-between songs.
We are silly and serious and extravagantly hopeful.

We are women.

And we are His.

3 comments:

Amy Ellison said...

Beautiful, Elizabeth. I love seeing diversity in a group of women... I love how we all represent different aspects of His character. :)

madhav said...

i don't know, what i said,but best of luck.

Freshauna Goodman said...

Wow!! I am puzzled and at a lost for words. CONGRADULATIONS and welcome aboard to being celebrated as a woman, showing your emotions, and being fully the Beautiful person you are!