Women’s Rights Day

Women’s Rights Day…let me choose my words! If we need to have a day to prove our worth or show how we can cripple a society by walking out on our responsiblities, then I wonder how we personally feel about our worth and rights.  The only person’s opinion that should truly matter is God’s opinion.  He created me as a female, designed a specific role for me to place in history and His story.  If I am following His plan for me and fully living in the role He created me to feel, then I will be fulfilled. 

Looking at what I don’t have or demanding to be appreciated reflects my own selfishness.  What happened today is that a lot of other people’s rights were infringed upon so that some people could stand up and say they are important. 

What we do on a daily basis, how we live, the people we impact, are proof enough of our worth and importance and contributions in the world.
Now, I am not ignorant to the fact that women all over the world do not have the rights we have here in America.  But here, in THIS country, we can vote, we can work in roles reserved only for men elsewhere, we have access to education and we also get to bear children, be mothers, cultivate and nurture a home and do many things that males cannot do.  We are so incredibly blessed and it gives me pause when we just want more and more and more at the detriment of other people.
Joining an organized effort on a single day to show how important we are, that, as a result crippled schools and businesses today and put children and parents in a difficult situation scrambling to find childcare and companies left short handed, is just unkind.  And what about the women who didn’t get a choice to participate?  The caregivers, the nurses, the business owners like myself…many women didn’t get a choice today.  And just because you do have a choice, doesn’t mean it was the wisest choice to take that choice.  

It’s not about equality….it’s about being content to fulfill the role we were created to fill.  In a society where everyone is willing to know their role and fill it and not always be reaching to step into another person’s role, there is contentment.  Everyone can’t be the CEO, or the Father, or the Pastor, or the Business Owner.  So, we accept our role in certain areas but rebel against our role in other areas?Doesn’t seem logical to me. 

Contentment comes from knowing who we are in Christ and believing in His ability to know what is best for us.I absolutely love being a female: I was able to bear children and feel what no man will ever feel.  I was able to bury children and know the depth of a mother’s love and loss.  I understand being a sister, daughter, aunt and friend in ways men never will know.  Those are rights God gave me that He didn’t give to men.  He made them physically stronger than He made women…why?  Their role is different.  He gave women intuition and emotions and empathy that is natural.  He gave me discernment that is naturally different that women.  God did not create us to all be the same gender anymore than we are supposed to be the same age or personality.  Let’s embrace who we are, strive to be a better version of who we are and not always be looking to have what someone else has or doesn’t have.

I realize this has the potential to be a controversial post…I also realize that some choose not to speak up when they fear disagreement.  Therefore we often only get one version on the topic.  Sometimes the minority on every subject have the loudest voice and most organized efforts.  Debates are healthy and seeing the world from different perspectives is a beautiful part of any society. 

My intention is not to criticize any female who chose to take the day off of work today, but yet, to remind all of us that we are created by an all knowing, all powerful God and that we are enough…just as He made us to be and we don’t need to stand up and shout that to the world.  We simply need to find our place in Him and know just how important we are to the story of eternity.

Renee Parris