There is Work to be Done.

I love this photo! Love it with every piece of my being. My beautiful niece sent it to me...its of her and my youngest daughter walking together on our bush holiday a few weeks back. Hand in hand..together.  I see so many stories and so many layers to this photo...I don't have the space or the words to do them justice...but I love it. Its simple and pure.

So I now I am thinking .....As the dust begins to settle from protests all around the world, women marching and standing together for women's rights. The right to be seen as valued members of society, for their voices to be heard and their wounds to be recognised in order for them to be healed. Now I feel like.... now what? What do we do with all that? Where do we go? How do we move forward? What does that even look like?

We women, we need to KNOW that we aren't created less than men.... but equal. Equal but different. We each have a part to play in this world and in advancing Gods Kingdom. No part is more important than the other just different. I love this excerpt from just one of the books I am reading at the moment, it was lent to me by our Youth Leader (who happens to be male)...the book is called Eve in Exile and the Restoration of Femininity by Rebekah Merkle.

"The Great Commission is the New Covenant expansion of the Creation Mandate given to the human race in Genesis. Initially our job was to fill the earth and subdue it (Gen. 1:28). Now there's an additional component: we need to convert and baptize the world (Matt. 28:19). Throw your mind back to Genesis. What critical ingredient was Adam missing when he was first created? He needed a helper. By himself, Adam was incapable of doing this job, incapable of either filling the earth or subduing it. So God created a helper suitable for the job. Woman was NOT an afterthought, or just someone for Adam to talk to, or someone who would make him sandwiches while he did all the filling and subduing of the earth. She was ESSENTIAL to the entire program. When God gave Eve to Adam, he was handing Adam an amplifier. Adam alone is just Adam. Adam WITH Eve...becomes the human race. Adam is the single acorn sitting on the driveway which, no matter how hard he tries, remains an acorn. Eve is the fertile soil which takes all the potential that resides in that acorn and turns it into a tree, which produces million more acorns and millions of trees. Eve IS fruitfulness.
    And if the Great Commission is the expansion of the Creation Mandate, if it is an unpacking of God's command in Genesis, then surely we see that women are integral to this project as well? The job of taking the world for Christ cannot be done by the men while we women sit off to the side and amuse ourselves with tea parties and having the occasional baby. If we take ourselves out of the game, the men cannot possibly accomplish what they are supposed to accomplish any more than Adam could of filled the earth on his own. WE ARE INTEGRAL to the project, and it's absolutely critical to the gospel mission that we recover a sense of our role. (Chapter 1 Pg 25-26) (Emphasis is mine)

Having known or now determined that we have an integral role to play.....what are we going to do with that information? How do we do that? How do we rally together as women so that there are no women left behind...that each know their value and worth? How do we stand with, encourage and enable our sisters, mothers, wives, daughters, neighbours, auntys, grandmothers, granddaughters, colleagues, our woman leaders, our pastors wives...any female we come across in lives no matter the race, social position or age? How do we instill in that she is absolutely integral to this world? Lord knows our world so desperately needs this. We can no longer sit by and let the lines between man and woman be blurred, so blurred in some cases that they are no longer visible. Man and Woman have been created different...physically, emotionally, mentally. Its time for our men to stand up... to be strong Godly men...to lead, live and love well...then and only then can women truly be free to be who God created them to be.....uniquely and beautifully female. Not less, equal but different.

Its time now for us to grow up and show up...for there is work to be done.

"She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue"  - Proverbs 31:26