Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Showing Up, Especially Today, On A Day Without Women

Here’s to strong women! 

Like most ladies, I have two jobs.  One outside the home where I work part time with and for children in foster care.  My other position, though, goes hand-in-hand with my role as wife, momma, and homemaker.

For this reason and so many others, I won’t be part of A Day Without Women.

I’ll explain: God gifted me, as He did you as well, with certain, unique talents.  I took advantage of higher education and, not coincidentally, pursued a degree in social services …I was genuinely called to this line of work.

All Christians are called to take care of widows and orphans (James 1:27).  As Christ-followers we are called to demonstrate compassionate, sacrificial love to those without the ability to reciprocate.  And I love that Scripture makes this abundantly clear.  But for me, it was sometime during my first year of college; it became evident to me that this was beyond what God called all believers to and for me, it was Him urging my life in this direction.

After graduating and getting early career experiences in social services, I met Adam.  Just a short time later (actually, a VERY short time later), we got married.  I continued to work.  Several years in, we started our family.  If you know anything about us, you probably know that our firstborn was stillborn.  This posed great challenges to us as husband and wife, but also to me personally, in my work.   You see, the world of foster care is complex and varied.  There is regular foster care where children who have, for one reason or another, been removed from their homes.  And then there’s a whole ‘nother level.  This is where I work; with children in foster care who have serious emotional and behavioral problems.  It’s here that trauma and abuse are rampant.  It’s here in the dark, sinister domain of addiction, and sexual exploitation, and murder, and violence that I’ve been called to serve.

So from a basic position, participating in today’s protest would be abandoning the obligation of my call to serve children and families who are, at best, on the fringe.  To cast out darkness wherever it is and to come alongside the disenfranchised and marginalized – truly, sincerely, humbly – honoring this work is!

But perhaps, in another way too, today’s protest and activities wouldn’t align with how God has made me, as a woman.  In this sense, in a very real sense, participating would mean that I would neglect the role He has placed me in as wife, momma, and homemaker.  I think I understand the idea behind the protest – something along the lines of how society would flail without us - collapse without the shoulders of hardworking, resilient women.  But can’t we agree this to be true?  Do we really need a day to prove we are needed?  Is our work and our role as women merely defined by how others see us?  Are we not discerning enough to realize our value beyond the opinions of others? 

People somehow believe or wish it to be so, that if we could have a clearly defined, established worth …  Or if we could at least have an uncomplicated  value and respect for what it is to be a woman, we might somehow feel powerful, effective, and more convincing.

But the thing is…as women, wives, employees, mothers, sisters, friends…AS WOMEN, our value, strengths, formidable abilities, and the very substance of what it is to be female comes from our Creator. 

That alone should be the end.  Because when He created each woman, He placed in her unique, defined, intentional characteristics designed to reflect His image.  We are of infinite worth.  I don’t need a day to remind me of this.


So today, I’m at my “home office” doing the soulful work of tending two little hearts.  Making beds, reading sweet little books, doing laundry, and playing with our two children – fully engaged, fully valuable, fully woman.


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