Feminism

She asked me how how I will teach my daughter about feminism, and the foundation under me trembled. 

You see, it wasn't the idea of teaching my daughter about historical facts of the "feminism movement" - afterall, that's just a history lesson, and she's only six.  No, my foundation shook because of the legacy that movement has left - a legacy of destruction.  What were "we" as women thinking really? - crawling out of despair and discontentment by screaming, "I am woman, hear me roar".  In our effort to instill justice and equality, rather than asserting our roles as women, and how neccessary they were, we instead aspired to be men. 

How could a movement built on the premise that it was promoting the "Woman" do so by telling her to become a man?  Didn't it accomplish exactly the opposite of what it set out to do?  Women wanted affirmation of their value to the family - and they touted it by saying they didn't need a husband.  They wanted freedom from the oppression they saw as motherhood, and turned their babies over to daycare centers. Women fled from the inadequacy they felt in their homes and in their spirits by pursuing power, pride, and prestige.  And what did we get?  We got buried under the weight of two jobs - a full-time career and a full-time family.  We found out that we couldn't handle all of this, and the size of our families decreased to compensate.  Our homes grew larger and our marraiges crumbled.  Our kids depend more on prescriptions to fill the holes left in their spirit that used to be filled with classic children's tales, read aloud by mother.  We traded the sweet seductiveness of kind service to our husbands for sultry romance idealized by a body shape that is unattainable and ever youthful as our own years press on. 

Did we really get what we wanted?

And yet, it really is the same story told throughout the generations isn't it? 
We who recognize the hole in our spirit, stuff it with a fix prescribed by ourselves - doctors without a license, and our prescription fails. 

The innoculation of our vaccine that wards off discontentment renders useless, and we still wind up empty.

When will we realize that true worth, true freedom, true joy, true satisfaction is found only in the gentle, ever-reaching arms of Jesus Christ?  He who took all of His just anger and wrath for all sins ever committed before and ever to be committed and laid it on His Son so that He may shout with joy - you are freely, entirely, fully forgiven - yesterday, today, and tomorrow - always. completely. forgiven.  These women who pushed forward the feminism movement found ache and discontentment - lives spent on things that hold no eternal value, and the aching, yearning for the chance to do it over again - to spend time on what mattered. We don't have to live this way!

I will teach my daughter that she too has this "spirit-hole" - and that the world will try to fill it.  But complete restoration is always found at the foot of the cross.  A cross where He had holes of His own - pierced hands and feet, a spear wound gushing, the drops of blood as the skin on His forehead gave way to thorns.  These holes were not empty, waiting to be filled.  Instead, they poured out of their depths everlasting life, filling, penetrating the spirit-holes in us.  And the Holy Spirit completes the mystery - Christ in us! -the hope of glory! 

Psalm 16:11

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.