On Becoming a Woman
I used to want to write a book. I have written two half-books, or nearly half. Anyway, the first half-book I wrote is called, "Heart of the Lioness." The name is derived, well, I don't feel like getting into all that because I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep and I was scheduled to get up at 5:00, which I did, but now I am sleepy.
The story behind the name, "Heart of the Lioness" is a great one, actually. But you can kind of figure out a little bit what it means, just by the name and by knowing what the book is about. I mean half-book.
The book is about being a woman - a Proverbs 31 woman, from the Bible. Okay! I'll tell you more about the name. The first line of Proverbs 31:10 talks about a capable wife. But various versions translate the word, "capable" into "excellent," "noble," "virtous," and goofy words like that. Everywhere else in the Bible that where at same word is used, (except when describing Ruth) words like, "valiant," and "mighty" are used instead.
I found a definition of that Hebrew word right in the Bible, from around the same period of time when Proverbs was written. In the book of Samuel the description of "valiant" was elaborated upon. In that context, it spoke of one being "valiant" as who having a "heart like a lion," or one being "like a bear robbed of her cubs." Well, that is what an excellent wife is like.
Ten years ago when I uncovered that meaning of an "excellent" wife (or, "valiant,") it was thrilling and validating for me, because that is the personality trait that I have always wanted and tried to assume. I want to be valiant for God, for my household, my family, my husband, for pursuing after righteousness and Christ.
However, there is another side to being a woman. That is to be a receiver, to be protected, to be provided for and to be loved. Those are qualities that God decided that I needed to learn, so He has been on a mission to teach me some of those womanly traits, whether I felt like I needed to learn them or not.
Earlier today, as well as a few days ago, a funny thing happened. I remembered how I felt when I was falling in love with my husband, and like when I had that airy (or is it air-head), floaty feeling. I didn't merely "remember" how I felt, I like, felt it. For a second or two.
It was like when you smell a flower that you hadn't smelled since you were a kid, and suddenly there you were, in your mind running past the neighbor's house with that bush that smelled that same way a whole lot of years ago.
So too, I was carried back when I unexpectedly felt those flutters of first love again as I was just sitting there thinking about him. "Anyway, but I love him" I caught myself saying as I overlooked something I was ticked off about and there it came. A flush of that gooey lovie-dovie feeling in a real old-fashioned way.
It seems that all these years all I have been trying to do is contain the rage - my rage that is. From time to time while going about life, my husband would think sometimes that I was angry and I wasn't. But really I was, somewhere deep inside. Simmering. Well, it was more like a blazing furnace far, but not so far away.
The fire was with the little wounded girl. The one still there and pissed off as all get-out that you did not and do not rescue her - and YOU COULD IF YOU WERE JUST THE PERFECT HUSBAND AND YOU KNOW THAT YOU COULD BE IF YOU ONLY TRIED BUT YOU DON'T TRY BECAUSE YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT YOURSELF! What good are you anyway? Yeah, that rage.
And so instead of fuming, I'd smile, serve the food and think and pray to myself, "Love must be sincere," and I'd feel God's love flow through me. And so it went on for a whole lot of years, and goes on.
It goes on because of the anxiety and fear which is the gasoline stirring the flames. And you would be anxious too. It is normal for the wounded little girl to be afraid because she had no protector and because of what was stolen. And who was looking out for her now? Was her husband there? How about Superman? Spiderman swinging down from a tall building? A mind-reader perhaps? How about a perfect human being. No, I would have settled for a perfect husband but he never came home nor left in the morning for work. My husband came home instead. He went off to work instead. A regular sort of guy. And I got used to that. Until I felt the feeling, and had the memory and realized that he has attributes that I can receive and enjoy.
I guess I forgot about the fluffy kind of airy feeling that makes you overlook in the first place - overlook all those "little" red flags blowing in the breeze like gigantic "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" signs waving in the air that are visible two miles down the freeway road. Twenty years later and its like, "Hugh? How could I not see that?"
"Smile Andrea, smile," I said to myself and day after day after year after year the calendar pages rolled away like in movie film that marks off time for the audience. I did things to make it better. I prayed a whole lot. I went on. I endured. I just felt afraid anyway, and now as I looked back over these 23 years together, nothing really bad happened. (Oh, but part of me says, "it could have been a whole lot better and look at the problems you still have now.) God has been so good to us and we are so thankful, so blessed, so rich.
A turning point for me was going on the Alaskan cruise in June. I was so glad that my husband thought that the cruise was fun and that he loved looking out into the Pacific Ocean. I liked it that there was peace and quiet and time to get away and hide into a little room and get all sorts of stuff done. I liked it that there was plenty of things my husband could do about the ship with all of the continuous activites. And no cooking or cleaning! Good food and an exercise gym with work-out classes and a salon/spa!
"Wonderful!" I said to myself and also to him (that is the order of things you know - what I think and want for my own interests and how he lines up to my perspective of the way I want anything that I may want at that moment). Since he liked looking out into the Pacific Ocean, then he can look at it for three and a half months when he takes me on an around-the-world cruise sometime before I die. 2014 is the anticipated - hoped for - year.
Then it hit me. I would only want to go on the cruise with him. I wouldn't want to go alone. I wouldn't want to go with somebody else (unless it was him and also another couple, for example). Humm. I only wanted to go with him.
I realized that I liked his companionship. I liked his companionship. I liked being with him. I'd rather spend time with him. Oh yeah, that is why I used to like him, because I enjoy his company. I'd rather be with him.
It is sometimes easy to forget that I enjoy his companionship for like, all the years between diapers and grown children. Enjoying his company was not actually much of a priority for A LONG TIME.
I still have to schedule my "fun time" with my husband. Seriously, I'm not that much fun. I'm intense and I enjoy that instead. I'm like President Bush, except I only think that I am running the free world. I'm getting into exercising because I found out that it is something I can sort of get intense at. I am trying to become the "ideal" body shape and it sort of pisses me off that it is really a difficult thing to do, but I haven't given up and am getting pretty close. I am frustrated that I consume NutraSweet because I see it as a weakness. "Why can't I be satisfied with pure, healthy spring water (alone) instead?" I am thrilled about the possibility about joining an MBA program for health care executives. WOW! That would be SO COOL! It would be such an intense RUSH to hang out all weekend and take marathon classes one weekend per month. Intense. Got it?
My husband likes it that I'm intense. He likes listening to me at least half of the time, as long as I am not nagging. If I'm talking about one of my planned exploits he has a little boyish grin on his face, as he listens to me with one ear and follows the TV game with the other. I asked him what he thinks about the MBA program, and he thinks that if I want to do it then I can and should. If I want to. He is very relaxed.
I realized recently, that he knows how to bring out the best of me because he is wonderfully encouraging in a quiet and completely accepting way. He is not personally motivated like I am. He enjoys socializing and being spontaneous.
As a grown woman of 44 years that has been married almost 23 years, I realized some things that I have put into order in my mind. Here is the list:
-God is Individually and fully responsible for providing for all of my needs. It is the Father's responsibility to provide for the needs of the children.
I had other stuff written here. But nothing else seemed to matter.
God took care of me years ago when I thought that I had no protector, when the anxiety and the rage came, but God was there because He ultimately did protect me and perserve me and He is making me whole. Additionally, He has woven into my personality attributes that I would not otherwise have. Presently, He is making me whole. He is working everything together for good, because I love God and I am called according to His purpose.
One of the things that He has given me that I wouldn't have otherwise is the ability to know the pain of God, to sympathize with other's pain and to know the pain that God feels over His people. I may not fully know the pain of God, but I can enter into the fellowship of His sufferings and that place is a blessing, believe it or not (Phil 3:7 - 3:14).
"Thank you Father for helping me to enjoy my husband and for teaching me to become a woman in Christ. Thank you for giving me a little hope today that worries about things that I have had for all the years that I've been married, may actually change, because You are the God of hope. Thank You that You have sustained us and I can say like Samuel, 'Thus far the hold has helped us.'" Help me become the woman You made. Help me to enjoy intensity but help me reflect the grace of vulnerability and beauty of resting quietly and calmly in someone else's arms in trust. Lord, You know there are disappointments that I have, but help me to show mercy and not blame. Thank you that You are the God of romantic love. Renew our love as we are approaching our 23rd anniversary this month. Thank You that You bring opposites together so they can wear off on each other a little bit. Show my husband Who You are through me, but may that be only a secondary way of learning for him, because He would seek You for Himself. Reveal Your hope to him, that You are the God of all hope. Show him how he can be all that You meant for him to be, still at this time in his life. Restore the years the locusts stole. Glorify Yourself through our love, through our lives, for Jesus' sake, Amen!"
The story behind the name, "Heart of the Lioness" is a great one, actually. But you can kind of figure out a little bit what it means, just by the name and by knowing what the book is about. I mean half-book.
The book is about being a woman - a Proverbs 31 woman, from the Bible. Okay! I'll tell you more about the name. The first line of Proverbs 31:10 talks about a capable wife. But various versions translate the word, "capable" into "excellent," "noble," "virtous," and goofy words like that. Everywhere else in the Bible that where at same word is used, (except when describing Ruth) words like, "valiant," and "mighty" are used instead.
I found a definition of that Hebrew word right in the Bible, from around the same period of time when Proverbs was written. In the book of Samuel the description of "valiant" was elaborated upon. In that context, it spoke of one being "valiant" as who having a "heart like a lion," or one being "like a bear robbed of her cubs." Well, that is what an excellent wife is like.
Ten years ago when I uncovered that meaning of an "excellent" wife (or, "valiant,") it was thrilling and validating for me, because that is the personality trait that I have always wanted and tried to assume. I want to be valiant for God, for my household, my family, my husband, for pursuing after righteousness and Christ.
However, there is another side to being a woman. That is to be a receiver, to be protected, to be provided for and to be loved. Those are qualities that God decided that I needed to learn, so He has been on a mission to teach me some of those womanly traits, whether I felt like I needed to learn them or not.
Earlier today, as well as a few days ago, a funny thing happened. I remembered how I felt when I was falling in love with my husband, and like when I had that airy (or is it air-head), floaty feeling. I didn't merely "remember" how I felt, I like, felt it. For a second or two.
It was like when you smell a flower that you hadn't smelled since you were a kid, and suddenly there you were, in your mind running past the neighbor's house with that bush that smelled that same way a whole lot of years ago.
So too, I was carried back when I unexpectedly felt those flutters of first love again as I was just sitting there thinking about him. "Anyway, but I love him" I caught myself saying as I overlooked something I was ticked off about and there it came. A flush of that gooey lovie-dovie feeling in a real old-fashioned way.
It seems that all these years all I have been trying to do is contain the rage - my rage that is. From time to time while going about life, my husband would think sometimes that I was angry and I wasn't. But really I was, somewhere deep inside. Simmering. Well, it was more like a blazing furnace far, but not so far away.
The fire was with the little wounded girl. The one still there and pissed off as all get-out that you did not and do not rescue her - and YOU COULD IF YOU WERE JUST THE PERFECT HUSBAND AND YOU KNOW THAT YOU COULD BE IF YOU ONLY TRIED BUT YOU DON'T TRY BECAUSE YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT YOURSELF! What good are you anyway? Yeah, that rage.
And so instead of fuming, I'd smile, serve the food and think and pray to myself, "Love must be sincere," and I'd feel God's love flow through me. And so it went on for a whole lot of years, and goes on.
It goes on because of the anxiety and fear which is the gasoline stirring the flames. And you would be anxious too. It is normal for the wounded little girl to be afraid because she had no protector and because of what was stolen. And who was looking out for her now? Was her husband there? How about Superman? Spiderman swinging down from a tall building? A mind-reader perhaps? How about a perfect human being. No, I would have settled for a perfect husband but he never came home nor left in the morning for work. My husband came home instead. He went off to work instead. A regular sort of guy. And I got used to that. Until I felt the feeling, and had the memory and realized that he has attributes that I can receive and enjoy.
I guess I forgot about the fluffy kind of airy feeling that makes you overlook in the first place - overlook all those "little" red flags blowing in the breeze like gigantic "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS" signs waving in the air that are visible two miles down the freeway road. Twenty years later and its like, "Hugh? How could I not see that?"
"Smile Andrea, smile," I said to myself and day after day after year after year the calendar pages rolled away like in movie film that marks off time for the audience. I did things to make it better. I prayed a whole lot. I went on. I endured. I just felt afraid anyway, and now as I looked back over these 23 years together, nothing really bad happened. (Oh, but part of me says, "it could have been a whole lot better and look at the problems you still have now.) God has been so good to us and we are so thankful, so blessed, so rich.
A turning point for me was going on the Alaskan cruise in June. I was so glad that my husband thought that the cruise was fun and that he loved looking out into the Pacific Ocean. I liked it that there was peace and quiet and time to get away and hide into a little room and get all sorts of stuff done. I liked it that there was plenty of things my husband could do about the ship with all of the continuous activites. And no cooking or cleaning! Good food and an exercise gym with work-out classes and a salon/spa!
"Wonderful!" I said to myself and also to him (that is the order of things you know - what I think and want for my own interests and how he lines up to my perspective of the way I want anything that I may want at that moment). Since he liked looking out into the Pacific Ocean, then he can look at it for three and a half months when he takes me on an around-the-world cruise sometime before I die. 2014 is the anticipated - hoped for - year.
Then it hit me. I would only want to go on the cruise with him. I wouldn't want to go alone. I wouldn't want to go with somebody else (unless it was him and also another couple, for example). Humm. I only wanted to go with him.
I realized that I liked his companionship. I liked his companionship. I liked being with him. I'd rather spend time with him. Oh yeah, that is why I used to like him, because I enjoy his company. I'd rather be with him.
It is sometimes easy to forget that I enjoy his companionship for like, all the years between diapers and grown children. Enjoying his company was not actually much of a priority for A LONG TIME.
I still have to schedule my "fun time" with my husband. Seriously, I'm not that much fun. I'm intense and I enjoy that instead. I'm like President Bush, except I only think that I am running the free world. I'm getting into exercising because I found out that it is something I can sort of get intense at. I am trying to become the "ideal" body shape and it sort of pisses me off that it is really a difficult thing to do, but I haven't given up and am getting pretty close. I am frustrated that I consume NutraSweet because I see it as a weakness. "Why can't I be satisfied with pure, healthy spring water (alone) instead?" I am thrilled about the possibility about joining an MBA program for health care executives. WOW! That would be SO COOL! It would be such an intense RUSH to hang out all weekend and take marathon classes one weekend per month. Intense. Got it?
My husband likes it that I'm intense. He likes listening to me at least half of the time, as long as I am not nagging. If I'm talking about one of my planned exploits he has a little boyish grin on his face, as he listens to me with one ear and follows the TV game with the other. I asked him what he thinks about the MBA program, and he thinks that if I want to do it then I can and should. If I want to. He is very relaxed.
I realized recently, that he knows how to bring out the best of me because he is wonderfully encouraging in a quiet and completely accepting way. He is not personally motivated like I am. He enjoys socializing and being spontaneous.
As a grown woman of 44 years that has been married almost 23 years, I realized some things that I have put into order in my mind. Here is the list:
-God is Individually and fully responsible for providing for all of my needs. It is the Father's responsibility to provide for the needs of the children.
I had other stuff written here. But nothing else seemed to matter.
God took care of me years ago when I thought that I had no protector, when the anxiety and the rage came, but God was there because He ultimately did protect me and perserve me and He is making me whole. Additionally, He has woven into my personality attributes that I would not otherwise have. Presently, He is making me whole. He is working everything together for good, because I love God and I am called according to His purpose.
One of the things that He has given me that I wouldn't have otherwise is the ability to know the pain of God, to sympathize with other's pain and to know the pain that God feels over His people. I may not fully know the pain of God, but I can enter into the fellowship of His sufferings and that place is a blessing, believe it or not (Phil 3:7 - 3:14).
"Thank you Father for helping me to enjoy my husband and for teaching me to become a woman in Christ. Thank you for giving me a little hope today that worries about things that I have had for all the years that I've been married, may actually change, because You are the God of hope. Thank You that You have sustained us and I can say like Samuel, 'Thus far the hold has helped us.'" Help me become the woman You made. Help me to enjoy intensity but help me reflect the grace of vulnerability and beauty of resting quietly and calmly in someone else's arms in trust. Lord, You know there are disappointments that I have, but help me to show mercy and not blame. Thank you that You are the God of romantic love. Renew our love as we are approaching our 23rd anniversary this month. Thank You that You bring opposites together so they can wear off on each other a little bit. Show my husband Who You are through me, but may that be only a secondary way of learning for him, because He would seek You for Himself. Reveal Your hope to him, that You are the God of all hope. Show him how he can be all that You meant for him to be, still at this time in his life. Restore the years the locusts stole. Glorify Yourself through our love, through our lives, for Jesus' sake, Amen!"
posted by An Ordinary Christian | 7:33 PM
4 Comments:
What a fabulous prayer! I love that you are still trying to love your husband more and to be the wife God plans for you to be. I have been married even longer than you..lol...30 yrs and I have seen God rescue my marriage time and again. Somehow we are still in love...we are still trying...we still care. its a miracle every day...God is greater!
Yeah!
Everyday is a great miracle :)
No cleaning and cooking...
I like this sentence very much.
HeHe!
You have a handle on it. You know what's important, you have dreams/goals, but you don't lose sight of what keeps you grounded (God). It feels funny putting God in parenthesis. **GOD** That's better! :)
Enjoy your husband and all God's given you!
sounds like you have been busy putting alot of thought into all these things and are working it out as God would have you to. Have a blessed day Andrea!
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