By AbbyA

Just to recap, JMathis quoted her husband yesterday.  “Every girl is a princess, whether she realizes it or not, and she deserves to be treated as such.”  The follow up to this comment is FEMINIST UPHEAVAL – – not by The National Organization for Women or your local women’s studies program – – by JMathis  herself.

We have all of these categorical boxes that we are in or want to be in.  Feminist.  Christian.  Post-Modern.  Politically Correct.  Professional.  Stay at Home Mom.  In a Relationship.  Married.  Whatever it is for you.  We are some of these things.  We strive to be some of these things.  What is it about the box?  What is it that fuels our desire for others to see us in a particular light?

Take JMathis.  The feminist within is cringing at the princess treatment.  Is she cringing because she really doesn’t want the royal treatment or is she cringing in fear of losing her kick-butt persona on the street?    Take me.  I really am good at what I do professionally – – God made that happen, not me.  BUT, put me around a group of stay at home supermoms and I automatically feel like a pathetic loser who is robbing her kids of quality time.  Or, take me again.  I have this really great partner who happens to not believe in God.  Put me around a bunch of equally-yoked couples and I feel like my relationship with God is being judged.  Is it harder to be who you are or harder to not be who everyone wants or expects you to be?

Let me tell you more.  I was in some serious bondage about the current state of my life.  Christian +Mom + Full Time Working + Recovering from the Real Estate Market Crash + Husband who thinks Christians are Hypocrites.  Staring at God with a blank face.  I felt left behind by my professional girlfriends who stopped working when baby #2 came along.  I felt left behind by my girlfriends who had the appearance of happy marriage and multiple kids.  I felt left behind by colleagues who could work without constraints such as heading out to pick the kids at 3pm or giving excuses for the noise in the background.  I really didn’t fit in anywhere.  Or so I thought.

Over a few month period, I met some really amazing younger women.  I met a coffee shop barista who was taking a semester off from college to work on her relationship with God and find direction.  I met a full time “house mom” for a bunch of pregnant teenagers in a group home.  She was deciding whether to stick with the group home or head out to Thailand to study to be a midwife.  I met a college softball player who was thinking about leaving for China to learn to teach English abroad.  Not one of these ladies made a big difference to me until I had met them all.  I was talking to my mom one morning as I aimlessly tried to find my son’s away football game field.  And, somehow, God, in a tender way, blew out my box.  He intended for me to see in these girls His passion and calling on their lives in out of the box directions.  He intended for me to see the value of a life that went in His direction.  This is the day that I stopped caring about what I looked like from the outside.

God is so out of the box.  His plans for each of us are so far and wide.  He intended for me to work and be a mom and stand for all of the other Christian mamas who are too afraid to admit their husband’s unsaved or their marriage is not perfect.  That is my box and there is no other box that my life would fit in.  We can’t live in glass walls.  Square pegs don’t fit in round holes.  We can’t thrive if we are starving for air in a life that wasn’t meant for us anyway.

So, JMathis, I love the feminist in you.  I love the feminist in you because you know that your political view doesn’t supersede God’s very specific and amazing plan for your life.  And, don’t get me wrong, pray for my unsaved husband!  At the beginning and end of every day, seek Him, know who you are in Him and live that out every second of every day until you see His very face.  For whoever loses his life for Him will surely find it.  Matthew 16:25.