Hello friends! If you've known me long enough, you know that I kind of have this thing for random holidays. I discuss one holiday (it's not really random, but anyway...) in this week's column that, thankfully, is becoming more prevalent.
And if you don't get anything else from this week's column, please remember it's Time Change weekend. I hit on that a little in the column too.
Don't forget to share it too if you like it! Thanks again for joining me on this writing journey!
Original publication date: Friday, March 6, 2015
Random Writer
International Women's Day
Sunday will be mostly recognized as the weekend our clocks will “spring forward” for Daylight Savings Time. Yes, this is the one we all despise because we LOSE an hour of sleep.
But lying in the background is another obscure holiday. March 8 also commemorates International Women’s Day, an annual celebration of the varied achievements of women across the globe. In fact, in America the whole month of March is noted as “National Women’s History Month”.
Growing up, the role of a woman--a wife, more specifically--was to cook and clean and care for the children. I’ve always had a fantastic model of what a good mother should resemble in my mom--even beyond those tasks, during those formidable years of my life and even so now as an adult.
In church, the female model was the same but with a few more responsibilities. Ladies would help in the church kitchen during fellowships, clean up afterward, and lead a children’s Sunday school class. Females would also teach the children during the main adult service or help in the nursery during any service.
All these roles would fall on the wives of the church staff members, along with other duties. If she were the pastor’s wife, she would lead a ladies’ Bible study and plan luncheons. The youth pastor’s wife would assist her husband throughout his ministry as well as plan girls-only activities. To this day, I will never forget the way Kim Wallach planned activities for us youth girls while I was in high school, whether it was an afternoon of scrapbooking or a Friday night sleepover. But even more unforgettable was how God used April Miller, the wife of my youth pastor during my middle school years, to lead me through the Scriptures when I accepted Christ as my Savior.
When I went to Bible college, the mindset of women was one that blew me away. I heard the jokes of how women should stay in the kitchen and make sandwiches, or how the girls on campus would either get married, get in a wreck, or take part in both before they graduated. Some of the comments, though, weren’t so comical. I remember the chapel speakers who said that a ministry wouldn’t succeed if a person wasn’t married, or how important it was for girls to “paint the barn”, i.e., wear makeup (which I really don’t think they were joking about). I actually had a friend who majored in youth ministry, who was told during her senior year, “Well, if you’re not married, you really won’t be able to do much with this degree.”
I did see some advancement during those college years, though. I remember being shocked at seeing a man working in the church nursery alongside his wife, because I really thought it was solely meant for women. And because I was basically told by the church all my life that wearing pants at church was wrong, I was completely caught off guard when the college pastor’s wife showed up to Sunday School in dress pants; it was almost a deal-breaker in whether I would attend and join that church.
So while it took some time, progression was made, not just in my environment but on a personal level. And for about the past year and more so the last few months, female leadership has been something that has really resonated within me. In the opportunities presented in my life, the possibility of being a leader is an exciting yet scary venture. You always have to keep at the forefront of your mind that as a leader, people will watch you and every possible thought about you will enter their minds. If you mess up, many people see it as a “one-and-done” situation instead of giving you the chance to hopefully learn from your mistakes and overcome them. If you succeed, sometimes people question how the success was achieved while others will rejoice in the success. And I think with females, there’s a microscope that isn’t placed on men in leadership roles.
In the work place, a female leader has to work with others and be the example of what they expect their co-workers to follow. At home, a woman can do the cooking and cleaning and caring, but a man should be just as capable to do those tasks. Today’s society has seen a switch where a woman can take an outside job and the man tends to the household, and I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with that.
And from a spiritual standpoint, God equips women to perform the tasks that He wants them to accomplish. It goes beyond the kitchen chores and branches out into other ministries of all ages and gender, some of which may go beyond the church doors to local or global outreach. We can see in the Bible how women were used in the stories of Ruth the Moabitess--who ended up being part of the lineage of Jesus Christ, Queen Esther who helped spare the lives of the Jewish people, and even Rahab the harlot, which not only shows how God can use a women but demonstrates the way He can take a person, regardless of gender, from the depths of sin to be used for His service.
Women like Beth Moore, Christine Caine and Christy Nockels--who have a global platform--have been used by God to bring this revelation to me, that women can be anointed by God and used for His purpose. At a more personal level, the quiet grace of my pastor’s wife and “go get it” attitude of the outreach pastor’s wife motivate me to strive for those qualities in my own life but in the way that God wants to cultivate that within me.
So take time out this weekend--no matter how tired we are from losing that hour of sleep--to show your appreciation to a woman in your life who does the best she can in her respective position, and not just because it’s the day set aside to honor women’s achievements. Fellow Christian sisters, let’s be an encouragement to each other in word or deed and take time out to thank God in prayer for the female leaders in our church and lift them up to Him. And let’s remember, whether we’re male or female, that everything we do should be done to honor God.
No comments:
Post a Comment