So I Have Some Insecurities

I am very insecure about the Church's view of women. I don't have any problems with God's view of us but I wonder, often, why God made it so easy for women to be viewed as inferior to men, as less valuable to the Kingdom.

Recently I spent the better part of a delightful week with two dear college friends, one of whom just had her first child (a milestone I have yet to arrive at). From the scent of her curled hands with the long brown fingers, to the turn-your-tummy sweetest kind of sickness I felt every time she broke my trance of amazement with a sound from her tiny voice box, it was love at first sight for that baby girl. I couldn't hold or kiss or cuddle her enough.

I am a baby hog of the worst sorts. Holding a baby is like drinking a chocolate shake for me. A chocolate shake that I never get full or fat from. So when somebody else wants a turn I sit there with my knee fidgeting nervously waiting for my next fix. I did notice some things this time, however, that I had never watched closely enough to articulate before. Watching a mommy with her baby is almost as good as holding one myself. A mother, in those first few months after the first nine months, is the child's life. Traditionally, though there are other options now, she is the one person who can give the baby nourishment and life. It was breathtaking to watch.

In ancient Israel it was the hope and honor of all to have boys, for a boy child could possibly be the Messiah. A male could, due to cultural privilege, receive the father's inheritance, carry on the family name, and maybe even prove to be the Savior of the world. I wonder how it never occurred to them to whom God would first entrust this Messiah.

At the inception of the world God could have chosen any method of furthering humanity. We could have grown on trees. Perhaps we could have started as a growth on the father's elbow requiring daily watering and special male maternity jackets to keep the fetus warm. God could have caused the female to die immediately after the birth of her offspring or simply had her whither into a loaf of bread to be eaten by the child until he could find his own food. My imagination, which is minuscule next to that of our Creator, could go to endless places when it comes to the way it could have all worked out. There are two things I do know when it comes to women and Creation: we were made, male and female, in the image of God and God, fully knowing that one day the Messiah would be sent this way, created females with the capacity to be the sole life givers to all humans after their conception. Women's pain and suffering in this would be a result of sin but the privilege to fulfill this part of Creation was the choice of God. With every male child born there was a hope of the Messiah. Why, I must ask, with every female child born was there not a hope that she could be the only human in history that God would choose to carry and hold and give life to the physical manifestation of God? Though Jesus certainly was the One who had been prophesied to them, the One who would bring deliverance, He still would be an offspring of God. The blood that would run through Him would come from Mary. And then what a beautiful picture we have. The One, who by the choosing of God, would receive life from Mary would then turn around and give her Life in return.

I am afraid that a good deal of these Israelite views have carried over into how we view women inside the Body now. We are certainly valued much more highly now than those times allowed almost across the board. I believe that in many ways we are much closer to how we were intended at the Creation to be seen. Still, I am deeply wounded when I see a woman refusing to use her gifts outside of her own home or hear a man say it was sinful for that woman to be "leading worship" as though that were a biblical term and worship was limited to singing at a microphone with a guitar wedged underarm style.

All I would ask is for another look. A mind that is set on seeing through fallen but Redeemed eyes what God intended. I don't know what that would produce, what ancient and skewed paradigms it might turn upside down. I don't know how it might humble many men and maybe even more women. All I know is the restless unsatisfaction of my mind in a world that views women and men through fallen lenses and the hope that redemption can bring us closer to God's intention at Creation.

As I sit and enjoy the silent thrill of an infant asleep on my chest or watch her mother faithfully and sacrificially give her life, I experience momentary amnesia over the questions and hurt I too often associate with women and Christianity. I only remember on whom God chose to bestow such a privilege and hope that with each privilege born a step towards Redemption is taken. A step leading us back to Creation.