And God Created Woman!

Recently, I shared a thought with you about God’s loving, involved creation of man, cemented in word pictures for me by our younger son’s first experience, as a doctor, of delivering a baby.  For the sake of brevity, I stopped a little short of what Paul Harvey would characterize as the rest of the story.  Years ago, I was studying the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings, late at night.  My husband was sound asleep, our sons were away at their respective colleges, and I could, as Psalm 46:10 says, be still and know that God is God.

Who Am I? An Identity Crisis

I was having a bit of an identity crisis.  Many of us, as women, tend to evaluate our worth based on relationships.  I had grown up the daughter of the pastor, become the wife of a man whose family had deep roots in a small, rural area, and, then, I became the mom of two sons.  I taught school for nine years, played the organ at the church for years, and was surrounded by people I loved and who loved me.  Then, both my father and mother had gone home to be with Jesus, our baby daughter had died, my husband and I had relocated, and our sons had gone away to school.  I was struggling with knowing who I was any longer and if my identity held any value to anyone.

As I read through Genesis 2, in the quiet stillness of that night, God began to encourage my heart with His word and His truth.  He revealed some things to me about the fallacies that I had held, as a woman.  Though relationships with others are truly a gift from the Lord to teach us His unconditional, unfailing, everlasting love, all relationships are an overflow of our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  No matter how passionately we may feel about other relationships, they can never exist, for any length of time, as any deeper or more powerful than our relationship with God the Father.

How I May See Myself

Often, we, as women, identify ourselves and our worth through our husbands.  Surely, in a godly marriage, a husband is a blessing from the Lord and an extension of the love of Christ for His bride, the church.  My own husband of nearly forty-four years is a joy to my life.  However, as long as we have lived together, we are dramatically different.  We don’t even speak the same language.  When I tell him I don’t want to cook tonight, I mean I want to go out to eat.  He thinks, Sandwiches.  When I tell him the trash is nearly full, I am asking him to take the trash out.  He thinks, It’s not full, yet.  I spend about 35,000 words a day talking; men, usually, spend about 15,000; my husband, an engineer, spends about 25.  In addition, he has this strangely innately male ability to sit perfectly still and think:  nothing.  I can ask him, tenderly, what is on his mind:  Nothing.  As he looks out of the window, I can say, Tell me what’s on your mind.  Response:  Nothing.  When I shake my head in exasperation at how anyone can thing of nothing, his suggestion is that I should try it sometime.  Those are the times when I am reminded that though I love him dearly, we are dramatically different, and my identity can never be rooted in that about which I know so little, even in a strong marriage.

Increasingly, however, women find themselves struggling in marriage because of the pressures of society, finances, illness, or infidelity.  If a marriage succeeds, we, as women, want credit for the success; if the marriage fails, we accept blame for the failures, rehearsing again and again what we could have done, differently, to save the marriage.  Women who are unmarried may long for a husband; women who are married long for a godly husband; and women who have experienced the heartbreak of a broken marriage long for the man who will join her in a successful marriage.  Yet, life expectancy statistics indicate that, in most marriages, good or bad, women outlive men.  So, most women will have to determine their identity, at some point in life, apart from a relationship with a husband.

Other women find their identity in their children.  I adored, and still do, our two sons.  I loved every stage of their lives, even their terrible twos.  Yet, at a point in time, we, as mothers, must realize that if we do our job of raising our children right, they leave!  Even loving husbands, often, do not understand the empty nest syndrome mothers experience.  I can remember the day that our second son left home for college.  I was walking through the house, weeping, He’s gone, he’s gone.  My husband was right behind me, pumping his fist in exhilaration, saying, Yes, They’re gone!  They’re gone.  I had listened for their cars to turn into the subdivision around midnight, their curfew hour; suddenly, there were no cars turning into the driveway.  (I did, finally, realize that the boy next door had to be home by 12:30 a.m., so I began to listen for his car to come home.  It helped a little.)  I found out that food had an expiration date.  I only did two loads of clothes a week, instead of per day.  The toilet lids stayed down, and, yet, my heart ached as I struggled to know who I was.  I had been Mom for twenty years.  God had to gently remind me that I was still Mom, but, according to Psalm 127:3, our boys had never been our heritage; they had always been the Lord’s heritage.

Sometimes, we find our identity in our profession.  Though Ecclesiastes 9:10 encourages us to be the best employee possible, the economy today reminds us no one is indispensable in today’s workplace.  As a matter of fact, that business where you may have spent the majority of your waking hours will open the day after you retire, resign, or are released, and it will continue operating as if you had never been there.  Men, too, can be buffeted by identity crisis in the midst of losing their employment.  Again, identity must be rooted in One Who is deeper than the most wonderful position of employment for that, too can be fleeting.

As materialism has increased in America, with platinum jewelry, platinum records, and platinum wedding, many people have found their identities not in people or their profession, but in their possession.  Again, America’s changing economics have jolted people into not only reappraising their professional lives, but also their ability to possess stuff.  People are losing homes, vehicles, and the ability to purchase their heart’s desire.  The line at expensive coffee houses is growing shorter, the wait time at fine restaurants is dwindling, and high-end construction is shrinking.  America, as a whole, is reeling under an identity crisis.  Though still richer than the majority of nations around the world, individual Americans are learning the temporary value that things can hold in life.  Those who have suffered the results of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes have long understood the truth of Matthew 6:19-20 which identifies the fleeting value of the treasure of this earth.

If our identity cannot be rooted in people, professions, or possessions, where, then, is a woman to define herself, her purpose, and her value?  That was my personal dilemma on that night so long ago, as I read through Genesis 2 again and again, looking for what God and God only had to say about the identity of a woman.

How God Sees Me!

Suddenly, as God revealed His tender love for Adam through creation, God caught my heart as I read Genesis 2:7, 15-25.  Following God’s beautiful picture of bonding with Adam as He breathed the breath of life into Adam, Genesis 2:18 reveals a startling truth!  Though God had pronounced every step of His creation good, Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, his pronouncement in Genesis 2:18 stands in stark contrast as He evaluated man in the Garden of Eden.  He said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helpmeet for Him.”  As I read that passage that night, I was overwhelmed with who I am.  I was a daughter; I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a teacher.  More than that, however, I am a woman, one of God’s final creations.  I was so overwhelmed by what I saw that night that I was compelled to wake my husband and share it with him, though he was not nearly as excited about it as I was.

God had created man and placed him in the Garden of Eden, charging him with the care and the upkeep of God’s earth.  God had placed him in a perfect place of beauty, without sin, without the results of sin, an earthly paradise.  Man was surrounded by perfection, beauty, responsibility, and purpose.  Yet, all of that was not enough.  Mankind was incomplete without woman.  Paradise was incomplete without woman.  God’s plan was incomplete without woman.  Life was incomplete without woman. 

What a wonderful reassurance that God’s purpose for me did not begin with anyone other than Himself.  Because He is never changing, my value never changes.  I am a part of His eternal plan.  I was not an afterthought of creation; I was His piece de resistance!  What liberty it is to know your value apart from roles you play, work you do, or things you own.  You and I have such an eternal value that God was willing to allow His only begotten Son to pay the sacrifice for our sin and wrongdoing, John 3:16.  That is an identity beyond comprehension!

© 2010 Gerry Sisk

(03/17/10)