His question surprised me because I had no idea where it was coming from.
And the Super Girl in me bristled.
"Desperate for what?" I asked. I'm pretty sure I also scowled a little.
"I was just listening to a radio program on the way home from work today and it was talking about the emotional desperation of all women."
He looked right at me, waiting for my response. He knows me. And he knew this wouldn't sit well.
I got up from the floor where I had just completed my third set of 20 push ups. Red faced and feeling the blood pumping through my arms I answered him simply, "no".
Before I was even born, I was fatherless. The world just isn't a safe place for children. Maybe that's the real reason that we are all born with fisted hands.
We have to come out ready to fight. I came slowly and painfully to my first breath of life and into the arms of a mama who loved me completely and grandparents
who saw me as their gift of joy and repayment for all the pain the world had inflicted upon them. I was cherished and treasured and adored. But I was never
Daddy's little girl. I'm sure I babbled on and on about "dadadadadadada" in my first year, as most babies do. But there was no dada to light up with joy and puff
his chest out with pride at the sound of his name emerging from my drooling lips. And even though I was surrounded on every side by people who poured love out
to me in such great amounts that I could have very well drowned in it if they weren't also the people who carried me through deep waters, there was a part of my
heart that felt forsaken. A part of my tiny girl soul that cried out for his strong arms to wrap around me and the stubble on his chin to get caught in my hair when
he leaned down to kiss my forehead. I needed daddy.
Thirty seven years and countless challenges, disappointments, joys, emotional pits, and life lessons later, I realize the strength that follows need.
There is a deep need in you to be valued.
There is a deep need in you to be loved.
There is a deep need in you to be cherished.
There is a deep need in you to be connected.
These are not weaknesses. They are human needs. Placed there by the God who carefully crafted every aspect of your heart.
In you there is also strength.
In you there is also resilience.
In you there is also the ability to peer down into the well of need in another heart, pull your own bucket from its depths, and pour into their emptiness.
And through some miracle that we may never fully comprehend, to see life giving water rise to the brim of your own well as a result.
Strength, for the woman of God, isn't what gives you power over another person. Strength is what gives you the power to lift another person higher.
But how do you turn a need into the ability to meet one?
By seeing yourself in others.
Being a woman of strength requires a willingness to use that strength to benefit others.
Using your gifts and grit for another's growth and good.
- Are your life experiences solely for your lessons learned, or are they useful for bringing strength to others? Have you been using them for that purpose?
- Are there areas of your life where you are still letting old scars tighten the skin around your heart? If so, how is that working for you? And how can you, instead, let God make those scars work for Him?
- In your weakness, He is strong. Daily remind yourself that weakness is not failure or punishment, it is a beautiful opportunity for the Spirit of God make you more dependent upon Him.
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