Today, I rang out an adorable geriatric patient who was struggling to walk up to the counter, leaning on the cart asking about her husband's medication. She proceeded to tell me he had just come back from a nursing home, and that they had been together for so many years, that now at the elderly age of 82, it was getting harder for her to take care of him. The fact that she was still crystal clear about what he needed for his multiple conditions touched my heart, and I could only respond, "well ma'am, for better or for worse, I hope he feels better knowing that you take care of him."
Proceeding to come home after work to the remainder of all the flowers of the wedding aftermath, I was searching for a fitting place to hang the dried bouquets of roses and hydrangeas from my two closest friends' wedding, and a thought reoccurred to me, from a family retreat last summer, on the complexity of life changes in being a woman.
To think of how vast and encompassing the role of a woman can be- from being a daddy's little princess, to being a successful career woman, to a lovely wife, to being a nurturing mother.
Yes, deep down inside, I know the catch-all adult sunday school theology is- that Christ is all sufficient and satisfying for me as my Maker/Husband, and that it is first and foremost, important to seek Him in solitude, working out my intimacy and salvation with Him in trembling and fear. It is about truly finding Him in the deep grinds of everyday though, from waking up, to going to the gym, to work, to studying, to facing conflict and strife, and to share in the joys and thanks of life.
At the same time, this spurs into a desire for community, to share in the phenomenon of running the good race and fighting the good fight of faith together- with peers and older mentors. I've been blessed to have the opportunity to serve younger time and time again, and I've been encouraged/learned plenty from fresh faces. My prayer for the incoming class has always been that the Lord would bring in the harvest field, and raise up the fourth kind of soil, and for hearts to be transformed by the Goodness of the Gospel.
After having been here for 5 years now though- seeing how there were almost no girls that had a heart to grow and be a disciple of Christ, myself included, to forming a group of 5 girls who had conflict almost everyday trying to share their lives together, to now having double-folded in the number of girls in several ministries here- in honest opinion, whether single or dating, I think that as someone whose gone through the fireseeds of pioneering women's ministry, as women, it can get quite lonely at the end of the day.
The complaint has always been the same- I've mumbled about it myself many times as well in my own strife- "there are no sisters here; nobody understands me, it's so much easier talking to guys." In my own case too, reality doesn't get easier either, when all your friends are graduating/moving away, getting new jobs, getting married or even having their second baby, while you're still working/in graduate school, and the pool of people present get younger and younger each year. I am thankful for how the Lord has brought older women to speak into my life from season to season; on the other hand, I have been longing for peers for years now. However, I also understand that there is no cure for loneliness/belonging, and a true community of believers is one where individuals truly seek to love Jesus; it is this common cause of Christ, that shines so brightly and causes that bond of the Body.
Experience and theory have shown that men and women bond/connect very differently, and looking back, I remember when I was preparing material to lead our last Women's Time on EPIC San Francisco Summer Project in 2011, I came to process and see the value of womanhood and sisterhood. I wrote in my journal-
"I've come to realize how much women need women. We tend to be more guarded against one another, because we need each other for support and want that sense of closeness and sharing. However, it's because we're so close/vulnerable, that it can easily be turned around and used to hurt each other. The support we offer each other should be more than what brothers can offer us, because brothers can only support sisters up until a certain point; no man can fully support a woman until marriage. Even then, brothers can't meet all your needs; they can't fully support you as a sister. In order to do that, we need to allow God to work in our hearts to melt away the walls we've build, taking down the bricks one by one, not because we want to pry and see what's behind it, but to journey in that experience and process together. In our hurts, pains, bitterness, anger, resentment, and brokenness. Because ultimately, it is because of our depravity, and hopeless condition that we need Jesus- that is why grace is so magnificent, we can realize how much, how precious, and dear having God in our lives mean, and openness in the Body starts with women to women, and men to men. That a brother shouldn't be the first one to know about something deep; the simple answer is- boyfriends don't make good girlfriends. That the body of Christ in it's fullness is when it is in tune with what's going on within, when everything is working together for the common goal of staying healthy. That common goal of knowing Christ and making Him known."
On my flight to California in May, I sat behind this woman who had a cute toddler and new born with her, and for the whole flight, she was able to keep them sound asleep and happy. To think of how daunting and big of a responsibility it is to take care of children from birth to raising them up to be men/women of God, frightened me into incompetency almost. I thought to myself, I've always longed and desired to be a good wife and mom, but how can I ever do that, when I'm still searching for who I am in Christ, and always will be? Starting from learning to be an obedient child, to being a lover of Christ- from there is where I can be a woman of His own heart, whether single, dating, married, wife, or in motherhood.
