Women

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I believe all my life I have been on a mission to prove that women are really strong. When I got saved about 10 years ago, it became an even more critical mission to disprove the scripture that refers to women as the weaker sex. I defied the word of God on this note. Women could not be the weaker sex as I was certainly not weak.

Okay, so before you put this reading down and dismiss it as juvenile and/or blasphemous, allow me to state truthfully that I do not claim to be highly experienced in life. I have only just begun to learn what it is to be a woman. I have observed and observation is truly a teacher of note. It is often difficult to give a true assessment of what one is experiencing for lack of objectivity, yet when one steps back and observes from a distance, greater insight is gained. I assure the reader that in all my 26 years I have had time to assess, critically so and sometimes even admirably, the characteristics of women around me and I have reached one conclusion. Women are not strong beings at all.

I believe I realized this from observing my mother and my older sister. I often noted mother’s disappointment in her eyes, she would sometimes cry or withdraw into herself. She has a big heart, but it really gets broken very easily, and quite often it was broken by the same issue, which I will not get into right now as it’s not the subject of my discussion. Then there is my sister. She is really tenderhearted. She often reminds me of women in the movies, so close are her tears. Then there’s me, the ‘strong’ one. You see, I learnt from an early age that strong women don’t cry, they don’t show emotion, they don’t show weakness and most of all they NEVER crack under any strain. Actually I learnt to act like a man in order to be a strong woman. It can be a very handy thing to be in complete control of your emotions like men. Mother was too weak, she kept on crying over the same issues, and she kept on having hope when I felt it was time to give up.

But when I looked closely at these two women in my life, their weakness is really not a weakness. From crying and purging themselves they heal more quickly and easily, they get over their disappointment quickly and anticipate the future with such hope as if the past had not scarred them. They have such hope in life whereas I had already given up and expected the worst because of the fear within. I had not purged myself of the pain nor had I allowed myself to cry because I was too strong to show emotion. In my strength I was really weak, unlike my mother and sister who in their weakness, were really strong. Before I learnt to cry, I would not allow myself to feel, cynicism has no time for reflections. It was easier to be pessimistic than to be optimistic and allow myself to be vulnerable to pain and disappointment. Then one day I cried, quite by accident really. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I think I had held it in for too long, it was time to let go. I had too many expectations of myself and of those around me, and every time disappointment came, I never allowed it to show. Instead I reacted through anger. When I did eventually cry, I cried so much it felt so good to just be weak. It felt good to let go of the emotion and allow myself to just be, not thinking of who would judge me for how weak I was, not allowing myself to fear being hurt. For it was during these tender moments of weakness that I learnt to enjoy the overwhelming power of God’s strength and love. The secrecy of surrendering myself completely into the arms of God was revealed to me. I’ve learnt that it doesn’t matter how much I get hurt, because I can always cry. I can let out a heart-ripping screech and feel all the burden lift up and during that ‘weak’ moment comes such lightness that its hard to resist being weak. Then get up and try again, and hope again.

I am slowly unlearning to be a strong woman so that I can live through any pain and come out scarred yet all the more better and filled with such hope. It is so liberating to be weak. I don’t have to act strong at all because I am not strong. I am better than strong, I am weak and a whole new world of optimism, hopes and dreams has been opened up to me. Today’s disappointments ignite hope for tomorrow for in my weakness I am made strong through Christ who strengthens me.

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