Day 5: 30-Day True Woman Makeover Challenge

A Godly Woman’s Work

Do you realize that the work you do today is important to God? Learn how you can glorify God in the way you work and in where you work.

• It is a privilege and a high and holy calling to tend to the practical, physical affairs of your home.

• Your good works ought to first be done at home, ministering to the needs of your family. Then as God gives you time, opportunity, available resources—or in a different season of life—take those gifts and abilities and expand them.

• As you handle the practical details related to the care of your family, there is profit. Work is good!

This is just a taste of what you'll learn from Nancy Leigh DeMoss in the series, “The Counter-cultural Woman: A Fresh Look at Proverbs 31.

Moving on…..

I realize that this post may offend certain people… good people, people who I’d probably really get along with otherwise.

But for the record, I am not sorry.

Over the last couple of days, a fire has come over me and I can’t keep silent.

You see, I hate when women stand before other women and use their platform to hide behind facades of ideal marriages, perfect specimens of children, and strong opinions on the likes of breastfeeding, vaccines, and church politics.

I cringe when the Kim Kardashian’s of the world pose half-naked in an attempt to prove that they’re still sexy, when any ‘real mom’ feels like anything but! When friends on Facebook post statuses like “Made 6 loaves of banana bread, ran 12.8 miles, fed the homeless, and saved a cat, and was still able to get home in time to make dinner tonight” – while the rest of us are left wondering how we even made it out of our pajamas today.

I don’t know when being sexy and domestically superior made us more of a woman, but let me challenge you with what I believe is the #1 misconception of a Godly woman…

I once went to a seminar on Christian womanhood, the idea was to learn what it means to be a Godly woman. What it takes to produce fruits and be used by God for his God given purpose.

And yet, THIS. is what we learned…

- How to execute a wedding. I however, sat there uninterested, and unapologetic. I mean, seriously? 

- We had a guest speaker who spoke on the importance of making dinner for our families each night, and pointed out the convenience of using a crock pot. Yep, it happened.  

- I also vaguely remember a lesson on why we must only read the King James Version of the Bible. But I can’t give you any notes on that, because I completely tuned that one out.

-  We also did an in-depth study of Proverbs 31 in the Bible. Which wasn’t bad per se. 

The Proverbs 31 woman is a lot of things; domestic and lovely, successful, and well-respected. But most repeated, she is STRONG! Not anything like the passive and weak woman we are so often encouraged to be. She has no fear of the season – the difficult times to come – and is most definitely not limited to planning weddings and using crock pots.

I began to think back to the times I have had to be strong…

Like when almost 2 years back I lost my Mum, I would have thought she would live to see me comparing paint swatches for my  living room, and sharing the quality times together (or whatever it is that mums and daughters  do!) but instead, I was battling grieve out . I remember me asking God or even more clearly, me kicking and screaming begging God to let me move on; to give me permission to be angry at him! But the Lord never wavered. I was furious, and shaken, but I was STRONG enough to choose to please the Lord above all else, and embark on a journey to learn and accept his will.  And for the record,  I am so incredibly glad I did!

And so, if I could teach a class on christian womanhood – and if all of you reading were my exceptionally lovely students! – I would tell you that the most breathtaking picture of ‘christian womanhood’ is not merely sweet, modest, well-spoken, domestic goddesses, but the woman who’s strength and unshakeable faith lifts up all those around her despite the circumstance or ‘winter’ she has found herself in. (Prov. 31:21)

That no matter how beautiful of a bride you make, that your marriage may still feel hopeless at times. And to remember that when that day comes, that it’s not a direct reflection of the INADEQUACY of you, but the potential GREATNESS that God can be if we allow Him! 

That one day, the strong men we marry, may need OUR strength to literally and physically pick them up off the floor… And that it’s not a damn crock pot that will save the day, but the fire deep within us to FIGHT for our marriages and for our husbands to be the godly men that the Lord desires them to be!

Because the truth is, everyone will at times let us down. But by choosing to find our strength in Christ, there is NOTHING God can’t grant us, and NOTHING He cannot restore! We only need to turn to Him, for He is the only one capable of giving life to our broken hearts, and give us the strength we need to keep holding on.

And it would be as simple as that. That itself is a Godly Woman’s Work.