My Children's Self-Image, Part 2

Today, I listened to Beth Moore speak. If any of you have taken one of her studies, or have had the privilege to hear her in person, then you know what it means to sit in the presence of a true God-speaker.
Over the past thirteen years, God has used Beth time and again in my life--to grow me, shape me, and inspire me to be a woman of His heart.

As you know from my last blog, one of my biggest prayers for my children is to grow to their full potential of how God has made them. And while I was speaking of the secular pressures out there previously, today Beth Moore showed me something more.

In 1Samuel, when David's qualities are mentioned as he was annointed by Samuel, and later by a servant of Saul, we see that David was quite an unusual man in our human way of thinking. He was a musician AND a warrior, he was a lowly shepherd AND an annointed king. He truly was a lion AND a lamb.

Something Beth said, struck me as a mother of boys and a wife of a very jack-of-all-trades kind of husband.

"When God finds a heart given over to Him, He forms from it a life with facets and features that normally wouldn't fit."

"He makes us unusual."

How could a Christian, who truly has the "activated spirit of God" within them, not possess such a three-dimensionality of qualities that our human minds expect to divide into boxes of male, female, melancholic, pragmatic...you name the categories...?

My boys may be rough and tumble, sports-prone, full of energy-- but they are also compassionate, nurturing to their little sister, and very emotional creatures!

My husband is a hunter, an athlete, a man of strength and respect, but he is a musician, a nurturer, a man of compassion and tenderness.

Why do we, in the world AND in the Christian realm, short-change our men when it comes to not-so masculine qualities? As I read headlines of mothers who encourage their boys to be girls at younger and younger ages, I realize they are totally conforming to a narrow way of thinking about what it means to be a certain sex. To base this on the way our children interact in their environment, the tangible things they gravitate toward that we as a society have labeled gender-specific, is not focusing on what really matters--and that is the heart of the child. Even if they don't have the Spirit inside them, they are created in God's image, and He is a God of every good feature and facet we know--which are not male or female specific.
In a fallen world, this celebration of unique creation is being tainted with human explanation and permission to take the easy way out, and not focus on the heart but on the external appearance.

It is a worldly view to even consider internal qualities as masculine or feminine...especially in children of God. If they have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside their hearts, then don't you expect they might be tender warriors, or nurturing kings?


It saddens me to hear parents try and discourage their boys from being emotional--I've seen fathers scold their sons for showing tears. But it also enrages me to hear society try and squelch traits they consider "masculine" all in the name of political correctness and open-mindedness.

The more I understand God's will, the more I realize that this world is far from open-minded...that, it might be trying to push against old stereotypes, but it is just turning the old ones inside out...they are sterotypes just the same.

Praise God that we are truly unique according to His Purpose and His Spirit. It's so nice not to have to push against the grain when the heart is the limit!