Accepting who we are.

"You have heard that you shall conceive and bear a son; you have hears that you shall conceive , not of man, but of the Holy Spirit. The angel is waiting for your answer:it is time for him to return to God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady, for the word of pity, even we who are overwhelmed in wretchedness by the sentence of damnation"

St Bernard of Clairvaux

The whole world for one brief moment was still waiting on the answer of one young woman. As much as God might have predestined her for this role, he required her submission. She was free to refuse. She could have chosen a comfortable life, but she did not she chose to submit to God. She became a living tabernacle carrying "the word" inside her. Once the Son of Man was born, it was her job to nurture, support and guide this young human male to become our redeemer. 

 We all have a free choice as to whether we listen to what God says to us, and grow  into that knowledge and bring others to Christ. Or, we can chose to ignore what God is asking and seek to serve ourselves.  

Feminism, is self serving. It started out as something quite reasonable, an effort to level the playing field some what. It has taken on a whole new life though. It is in danger of and in some cases already is doing to men, what women have objected to having happen to them. Justified purely and simply with "We deserve to have this now".  The trouble is we do not deserve to trample on others, even if they trample on us. We should not be seeking "tit for tat".

In reality we are not actually all that down trodden. Men are not out to destroy us, undermine us and exploit us. In fact they are actually quite nice. Most men I have met are there to affirm us and want to see us grow. However, we ourselves have to accept that we are different. We are not men and we never can be. Qualifications and ability, are not the only things that make us ideal candidates for a job. We can not always be the right candidate and there are some things we are fundamentally not meant to be. We are not just physically different, we are emotionally and mentally different too. Not deficient, not not as good, just different. Often Mothers expect it all, a good job and a happy family. It is a pipe dream, somewhere along the lines we compromise, either our jobs or our families. Then we turn round and blame men for standing in our way. We stand in our own way, because we are not designed to have it all. God created Man and Woman, together they are in his image.  We are designed to compliment each other and not to be each other. If we learnt to be more confident in who we are, accept who we are and be proud of who we are. We might find that this constant struggle internally might cease.  What we can not keep doing is trying to undermine men, squash them and trample on them in order to prove we are just as good. We have always been equal in the eyes of God. We do not need to prove it, we need to accept it.

We all have a choice, we can listen to God and follow him or we can follow ourselves. Ask yourself in everything you do, "Am I doing this for me, to make me look good, to affirm myself and get noticed or am I doing this out of genuine love and concern for others? Is this God's will?" It is a far harder path to accept that we can not always have what we want and we are certainly not entitled to all that we do want.