The Challenge of Being a Woman

Sometimes when the marriage of a couple we have mentored and known from their wedding day, crashes and burns, Chuck and I will spend time feeling sorry for ourselves, wondering if anything we are doing and saying has an impact on anyone. We are broken hearted when a family implodes and nothing we can say or do can put back the pieces of their broken homes. Why bother, we wonder. What good does it do? Then we reassure one another with this truth: there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people who have heard the Word of God and the exhortation to apply His Word to daily life who are quietly living out their lives, applying scriptural truth, and experiencing God's grace and strength as they face the struggles of this world. These people are building families and passing on a legacy of faith that is eternal. We encourage each other that all we can do is share what God has taught us. People have a choice as to whether what we say is truth and whether or not they will apply it to their lives. We can't force them to obey God's Word and experience the joy that only He can give.

Then there are moments, many more than the crash and burn experiences, when God reminds us of some of those people who choose to apply God's Word no matter how difficult and walk by faith, in the light and the darkness. They are the busy bees in the church, often behind the scenes, saying "yes" to helping others, leading children's ministries, working with the youth, teaching a women's Bible study, attending a men's Bible study, serving in leadership roles, singing in the choir, keeping the books, welcoming guests to the church family. God has transformed their hearts and out of gratitude to Him they are passing on a legacy of faith to the children God has placed in their lives.

God recently reminded me of some of those women who chose to attend a Bible study for young married women in 1994. Our newly-wed daughter, Heidi, asked me to lead a study for her friends, all newly weds. The topic was The Challenge of Being a Woman. What was ironic to me was that I had taught this same study to some of their mothers when these newlywed young women were little girls. Heidi had no furniture so we sat on the floor in her living room and week after week, opened the Bible to see what God had to say about womanhood. I just found the attendance list for that small group. Fifteen of the twenty women are still active in our local church, striving to build families that know, love and fear God and many are in leadership positions. Two of the women, sadly, are no longer in their original marriages. I've lost touch with three others. But think of the percentages. In a culture where 50% of marriages end in divorce, as far as I know only ten percent of this group suffered the agony of a failed marriage.

I'm not saying that these girls are walking by faith because of this study. But I do believe their hunger to equip themselves for this strange thing called marriage so early on in their lives indicates their commitment to keep on learning and to keep on building on their strong faith foundations. I can still see some of those girls and where they were sitting in that circle. I remember one of them asking hard questions because she had just recently experienced the stillborn death of her first son. I can see another sweet, young, shy, quiet girl who would later sit in my pink chair in my sunroom and cry through every meeting the two of us had as she tried to reconcile the stillborn death of her first daughter and God's love. I think about our daughter's coming struggle with infertility and wonder how much that group helped prepare her for her own battle to trust God. Along with my own daughter our new daughter-in-law as well as the young wife who whose family would one day include a child with enormous physical needs but also great joy because of that child. I see the BIG hairstyles on some of the girls and I chuckle that one of them is now the Nursery Coordinator in our local church. Another one is a pastor's wife, one is an elder's wife, another a deacon's wife, and all of them women that I absolutely love and fondly remember. I remember the discussions on submission and headship, the laughter over the differences between men and women.

But most of all, I remember how those girls became a safe place for a broken-hearted grieving mother - me. This was a year after our son's death and yet these girls thought I had something to offer them. They gave me a reason to think about something besides my own anguish. Because of that, each one has a special place in my heart.

Now, I look around at a whole new generation of young newly weds and young mommies and I am eager to pass on to another group of women some of the truths that God has taught me over the years. But more than that, I can't wait to develop those same kinds of personal friendships with this new group of women.

And I will have the privilege of observing them as they choose to quietly build a legacy of faith that will have an eternal impact, just like their sisters who walk this pathway a little ahead of them.

In His grip,

Sharon