WOMAN (Bride, Part 3)

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. - Genesis 1:26a,27

One of the treats of going to my grandmother's house as a little girl was that I got to watch TV.  We didn't have a TV at my house.  I remember a commercial for a particular brand of hair dye (was it Clairol?) that proclaimed:  "It's you, only better."  Even as a child, I thought that statement seemed nonsensical.  How could a product claim to be "me" and "better than me" at the same time?  Seemed like it should be one way or the other, but not both. 

I remember another commercial which featured a vampy woman singing in a throaty voice as she stared out of the TV with come-hither eyes:  "Who can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let you forget you're a man?"  She began the commercial in a business suit, switched to an apron, and finally ended up in a slinky nightgown.

Funny what sticks in your head over the years from watching television!

There is a philosophy of womanhood running rampant today that asserts women are just like men...only better.  Yes, we can dominate the corporate world, and we can cook dinner and be sex goddesses while we're at it.  Young women feel pressure to be it all, do it all.  The woman who genuinely desires to devote herself to seeking God, to loving her husband, to motherhood, home-making, hospitality, and the slow, unglamorous business of a life of service often finds herself pressed to "do more" with her life.  Like she's wasting her potential, sold out womankind, betrayed the sisterhood, by refusing to buy into the lies of the age.

Sara Groves laments this new age of womanhood in her song "Every Minute":  I can think of time when families all lived together, four generations in one house.  And the table was full of good food and friends and neighbors.  That's not how we like it now. Cause if you sit at home you're a loser.  Couldn't you find anything better to do?

In Genesis, we read that when God purposed to form a creature that would bear His image, He did so by making a man and a woman.  Woman was not a copy of man.  She was not man-only-better.  She was a unique representative of the God of the universe.  Whatever God wanted to communicate to this world about Himself through His image-bearers, He chose to do so through two distinct, complimentary beings - man and woman - each with their own gifts, strengths, and abilities.

Many woman today resent this distinction and labor to usurp the place of man.  Instead of gratefully receiving the good gifts and opportunities given them by God, they long covetously for another role.  Ironically, by doing so, they belittle the value of women rather than elevating women.

My challenge to you today, young bride, is this:  Never, ever forget that you are a unique image-bearer of the most high God.  God has made you different from your husband for a reason.  There is something about Himself that God wants to tell the world through you, a woman, that He has chosen not to tell through a man.  Because you are different, you have much to learn from your husband, and he has much to learn from you.  Don't be tempted to suppress the differences.  Celebrate those differences, and seek to use them to glorify God and to serve those around you.

And I'll caution you, young bride:  being a woman - a true woman - is hard work.  God's daughters are not pale lilies, locked away in ivory towers, eyes weak from embroidering tapestries.  No, they are strong women, warrior princesses, laboring against the lies and schemes of Satan.  Our service is right on the front line of Satan's attacks - our homes, our marriages and our families.

Don't get distracted.  Don't waste your time and strength trying to be something that you're not, "only better."  Suit up.  Stand strong.  Be a woman.