Day 1: Design Your Own Personal Vision Statement
To see women healed through my compassion and encouragement that is bold, real and raw, enabling them to find completeness through serving God so that the world will treat them with the kindness and respect they deserve.
Donna Partow, author of our 90-day adventure,
"Becoming the Woman God Wants Me to Be," made a profound observation about today's woman: "More than ever before, a woman of noble (capable, intelligent, virtuous) character is hard to find."
Following the guidelines of how to develop my vision statement, it was no surprise to me that my "ideal world" was full of women who served God, and I would help them be healed through my compassion and encouragement. I've known for some time now that my heart aches for the aching woman.
Having been an aching woman myself, and now realizing my worth through Christ, I long for the day when women can overcome being a victim without losing the values and principles of being a real, genuine woman.
My father-in-law used to work the late-night shift in the hotel industry. This was usually when the drunks off the streets of Chicago would barge in demanding a room. What disgusted him most was the kind of women that would come in, cursing at him, falling all over the men they were with, and revealing more of their bodies than he cared to see. He is an old-fashion kind of guy, and my husband holds those same values.
Unfortunately, at one point in my life I was one of those women my father-in-law loathed. So the question bears asking, "Why is a good woman so hard to find?"
Today's woman is hurting. She has endured much heartache through abuse, unwanted pregnancies, sexual molestation, rejection by her father and sometimes her mother, childhood tauntings, being bullied by other girls. She also suffers greatly at the projections of what an ideal woman looks like. She is continually being badgered with unhealthy, ungodly, undesirable images of what it means to be a "strong" woman. Hollywood depicts today's woman as someone who sleeps around, gets her way through sleeping around, and manipulates those around her with her charm and sexuality. She is also the kind of woman who doesn't need a man anymore, because she can take care of herself. She can have a child without a man, and she can even have a marriage without a man. Today's woman cares more about her selfish desires to succeed and make a name for herself than she does about having a family or dedicating herself wholly to one. She doesn't have time for that kind of nonsense, so if and when she does finally have a family, she slings her kids off to day care and works long, hard hours. She doesn't care about the values that are being force fed onto her children, because she's just grateful someone else is doing all the dirty work for her. Suddenly, though, today's woman is distraught when her teen children are doing drugs, sleeping around, and doing poorly in school. She doesn't get it. She's done the best she can...
Proverbs 31 will prove that she's not doing the best she can, because today's woman throws all those virtues out the window. They are considered to be ancient, old fashioned, outdated, and ridiculously unattainable, so they just don't even try anymore. Women are not trying to be virtuous. They want what they want and they'll do whatever it takes to get it. It doesn't matter if an innocent child will suffer due to this selfishness, or if they decide to maliciously take an unborn child's life so they can continue with their unrealistic, dangerous, and devastating views of what being a woman is really like.
When women want to know why they are mistreated by men, they don't bother looking in the mirror before they leave the house for the bar and ask themselves, "Do I look like a lady who is worthwhile, or do I look like someone who is worthlessly only out for a good time for the night? Am I woman worth the long haul, or am I a woman who needs to be overhauled?"
The world is in desperate need of virtuous women who truly want a husband, a family and to make a real change in our world through love and compassion for others. But today's woman is lacking any effort to love anyone else but themselves.
Again, if you think this is harsh, I'm speaking from my own experience. That woman I just described was me only fifteen years ago. I'd like to say that my outlook changed when I got saved in 1998, but it didn't. I had to go through several more abusive relationships before I finally humbled myself before God and surrendered all of that "stuff." When I did, my outlook on being a woman changed for the better. I no longer need to compare myself to the world's wild and wicked projection of what it means to be a woman, because I know who God calls us to be.
I'll never be perfect, but for the next 90 days with my fellow Proverbs 31 Women, I am going to strive for something even better than I hoped to achieve within myself...and all by the grace of God.
