How do you define womanhood? Have you ever asked yourself where your definition of womanhood comes from? If you were to go back to when you first transitioned from being a young girl, to then becoming a young woman, and perhaps now a young professional, maybe a wife and perhaps mother - where did your original idea of who you should be and what you should be doing as a woman come from?
For me it was from the influences of the women around me. The women I saw in my family, church, community, my teachers at school, and the women I saw on television of course. What I aspired to be as a woman was a combination of what I thought worked and what didn't work. So I shied away from what I saw not work for the women around me when I was growing up, and gravitated towards what seemed to be working quite well, and purposed to perfect it. I wanted to become the ideal woman. A model of perfection.
I often tell the story of what I thought the ideal woman was when I was growing up, and I envisioned a well educated, intelligent woman who was not only the perfect wife and boss babe, but also a mother of twelve. Yes twelve. My grandmother had twelve children, and her mother thirteen before her. To say this greatly influenced my desire is an understatement, but this is an example of what I saw as "working well". My mother only had me and my sister, and that to me was just too little a number of people to have around you. I wanted to have a big enough family to do everything with like what I saw growing up. My aunts and uncles were always around, not all at the same time, but I saw them so often they might as well have been. We all lived in close proximity so I had cousins to play with, and we all practically grew up together. Holidays and special occasions were the greatest time.
Family was everything to me, and it still is, so I wanted that reflected as part of my womanhood journey. So being a single or divorced mother of course was absolutely never part of my perfect picture, until it was. That to me was something that I didn't see "working" when I was growing up, and so most naturally, I did not want that for myself. After being married at the age of twenty-six and also becoming a mother shortly thereafter, my husband and I separated after just five years of marriage. My dreams of becoming the ideal woman were shattered. Not that I couldn't build a new dream, I most certainly could have, but it became abundantly clear to me that God had other plans for us.
During what I consider the darkest time in my life, I came to learn, see, and know the truth about womanhood. I realized that the ideal woman does exist - queue the sigh of relief. What I learned about the ideal woman is that she does not exist outside of who God says she is, and so began my new quest to become the ideal woman God has called me to be.
While you're inside your tool box figuring out where your idea of womanhood came from, allow me to share with you the truths I've discovered about womanhood while chasing the ideal woman.
The 7 Foundational Truths About Womanhood:
1. Womanhood was and still is God's Idea.
2. Womanhood is the vessel God uses to shape the hearts and minds of those around us.
3. Womanhood is a testament of God's love and grace for mankind.
4. Womanhood does not exist in isolation.
5. Womanhood is an incorruptible beauty rooted in living a surrendered life.
6. Womanhood is multi-dimensional.
7. Womanhood evolves when we build community.
Over the past year I've had the pleasure of working with and being in conversation with some incredible women on my podcast, where they also shared what they thought were some foundational truths about womanhood. One of my guests said that womanhood has absolutely nothing to do with your role as a wife or mother, but everything to do with your posture of heart. Another one of my guests said that womanhood is not a skirt! It could be a skirt, but it is not defined by it. So good! I agree with both of them, don't you?
I would love to hear your definition of womanhood, and what you believe to be one foundational truth about womanhood. Come on over to IG/Instagram and join the conversation. Perspective is everything, and I'd love to hear yours.
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