Rethinking My Femininity

Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives. Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

That's the essence of a woman - the inner self, a gentle and quiet spirit.

And I? I was anything but gentle and quiet! My motto B.C (Before Christ), which I clung to fiercely, was "Don't give a $h!t", especially about what others think. They could go and stick it up their @$$es for all I cared. My nickname, and a favorite one, was PsychoBitch. (She's not totally dead yet; at certain times she lurks beneath the surface waiting to pounce. I'm working on that.) My relationship with the outside world could be summed up with the maxim "I'm not f***ed up, everything else is!"

I was angry and rebellious. Proud. Satan's prisoner.

Who needed men? Submit to men? Yeah, right! No freakin' way! I am perfectly capable of living without them, and I definitely won't submit. I am master of my own life, to hell with others.

Yea. I was that bad.

I think that it was this abhorrence towards submission that made me despise all things feminine, because being a girl meant I was weaker, less. (I still hate pink)

And now? I'm learning. God's Spirit is at work within me. I'm rethinking my femininity, what it means to be a woman of God. I'm learning to submit, to cultivate that 'gentle and quiet' spirit.

I am able to do this because in Christ, I've found that submission does not equal weakness. That you can be gentle and strong at the same time - that these are not contradictory. That I love Jesus, and to love Him is to submit to Him - the very essence of Christianity.

I've found strength in Christ where I was weak - His grace is sufficient for me, His power made perfect in weakness. And I am willing to do anything to glorify His name.

I was created in God's image, and He loves me. Secure in this knowledge, my old definition of 'weakness' seemed so insignificant, so stupid. What I thought made me strong, actually only made me foolish. It made me ugly in God's eyes, and that bit of knowledge cut deeper than any hurt I'd ever endured.

I want to be beautiful for God.

But I know it will be a long time before I can learn to be quiet...