Friday, January 30, 2015

Women in Christ: What I've learned from Women in the Scriptures

I thought I'd just quickly share a few of my thoughts as I've pondered what I've learned from the women in the scriptures. I've been thinking about it a lot this week and I think the most important thing to me as I've looked at the quick little glimpses into the lives that these women led is that these were ordinary women that became extraordinary as they allowed God to work in their lives. They had weaknesses, fears, and sins. They had their moments when they were uncertain of the path before them. They even had their moments when they struggled to remain faithful. Life isn't easy for any of us. It's not supposed to be. But many of the women in the scriptures show is that even when it's harder than we think we can possibly handle God is there and willing to accept our offerings, however small they may be, and make them into something extraordinary. I wish so much that we could know more about these women and know more of them.

Monday, January 26, 2015

Women in Christ: Learning from Women in the Scriptures



So I changed my mind a bit about what I wanted to do for today’s Women in Christ post. Originally I had planned to start in on some discussions about some of my favorite women from the scriptures. I decided that I really wanted to hit some other things I felt were more pressing first. I couldn’t bypass it all together though so for this week I’d like to have a discussion about things you’ve learned as you’ve read or studied the women in the scriptures.

Last October I finished up a yearlong challenge to read through all the scriptures taking a closer look at the women that are mentioned. Did you know that there are over 200 women in the Old and New Testaments mentioned specifically, many by name? If you belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we have another 50 or so in our additional scriptures. This doesn’t even include all the generic daughters and wives mentioned. Isn’t that amazing! I knew that there were a lot of women in the scriptures that never really get mentioned or talked about much but until I took the challenge I couldn’t believe how many stories I never knew. It was amazing to me to see for good and bad just how much of an impact women have had on the history of the world according to the scriptures.

Just as some interesting food for thought – here are just a few of the lessons I learned from the women in the scriptures:

  • Families and the work of motherhood is very important to God and His eternal plan.
  • We are called to be equal partners with our husbands.
  • God can work miracles through His daughters, even when we don’t believe it’s possible.
  • Simple acts of service can place us in the right place at the right time to fulfill our destinies in ways that are beyond our current comprehension.
  • We can have the gift of prophecy.
  • Faith, fasting, and prayer by a virtuous woman can save an entire nation.
  • Christ hears our prayers.
  • Christ can heal us of all our pains and sicknesses and sorrows.
  •  It doesn’t matter to Christ what race or nationality we are born into.
  • When we give our best efforts Christ will bless it and sanctify it.
  • When we set an example of faithfulness, our families and children will be blessed.
  • Everyone has moments of doubt – it’s how we handle those doubts that defines us.

What are some things that you have learned from the stories of the women in the scriptures? Do you have favorites? Is there a woman whose story really touched you?

If you haven’t yet, will you take the challenge to read through the scriptures focusing on the women? As you go through mark the passages that talk about women and try to write down at least the names of the women that you come across. If you really get into it, thanks to modern technology you can learn a lot more about these women than ever before. I really believe that knowing more about the women from the scriptures will help us to more fully understand the power and influence that women have on the world around them.

Friday, January 23, 2015

Women in Christ: More Musings on Virtue

As I've been thinking this week about the virtuous woman we talked about from Proverbs 31 I've been asking myself a lot of questions so I thought I would share some of my thoughts.

1. How do the virtues from the Proverbs 31 woman fit into today's world? I think if we look at some of the things that it talks about like a "to do" list for Christian Women and feel that we are failing if we don't spin and weave and work with flax and plant vineyards or even have a clue about how to do those things we're missing the big picture. Although they are still done and enjoyed by women around the world today, I'll bet most women aren't going to be involved regularly in those activities. The virtue of the woman doesn't lie in the specifics of her actions but in the characteristics that they represent. When we look at those we can see things like I mentioned before - characteristics that include: being trustworthy, hard-working, prepared, able to provide for her household, understanding of business, giving, wise, and kind. Those are still traits that we all still can and should seek after.

2. What other virtues might be important for a daughter of God? Some of the virtues that I felt are important for a daughter of God but weren't necessarily talked about (although I think some were hinted at or were very likely present because of the other ones mentioned) are faith, charity, self-worth, patience, and humility. I'm sure there are others that are important too, it's hard when making lists like these because some things are always left out. I believe that if there is anything virtuous or good we should seek to develop it.

3. Is it possible for any one person to have all these virtues? From what I have read no one is certain about the identity of the Proverbs 31 woman. Some say that she is Bathsheba, King Solomon's mother. Some say that she was a compilation of virtues from many women. Some say that she isn't a woman at all but is only a symbolical representation of wisdom defined in a feminine context. I don't think it really matters though. Ultimately I believe that it is possible for a woman to have all these virtues and more. I don't know however if it'll be in this life or the next. No one is perfect. We are mortal and fallible. I think that because of that we will always find ourselves lacking. Also, each of us is given different natural gifts for our own distinct missions here on the earth. We're made perfectly imperfect so that through our weaknesses we can gain strength through working to develop qualities that are weak and seeking out the help of others whose strengths compliment our weaknesses. I do think though that we are told that we need to work on becoming perfect and I've seen many mature women who I believe consistently show a heightened development of many of these virtues in their lives every day. Notice I didn't say a perfect development of the virtues because like I said, first- I'm not sure that's possible while we're here on earth; second- frankly, that's between them and Christ to judge not me because I certainly don't want to put that kind of responsibility or pressure on anyone.

4. Is there anything else important that we can learn from this passage? I'm sure that there are lots of little golden nuggets all through this passage. For me, I love that part of what makes her so strong is that she's constantly just taking care of the things that need to be done and because she's putting in effort she is blessed. She doesn't have to worry about the future, her family loves her and calls her blessed, she has many comforts of life. Her work has been mainly within the walls of her home and yet, the effect is almost impossible to measure. She works hard yes, but she receives the reward for her work. We have to know that if we are called to do hard things that there will be blessings. Maybe not at first, maybe not for a long time, but if we keep working and remain faithful we will be blessed accordingly.

What musings have you had as you've thought about virtue and the lessons from the woman of Proverbs 31?

Please stop by on Monday to help next week's discussion get going - what can we learn from Eve?

Monday, January 19, 2015

Women in Christ: A Virtuous Woman

Today I'd like to open up a series of discussions about what it means to be a woman in the gospel of Christ. Personally I feel that there are a lot of women who want to be good Christian women but with so many different voices out there trying to tell us what we “need” to do sometimes it's hard to listen to what Christ wants us to do. As we discuss and ponder some of these things together and share in each other's wisdom hopefully we can help one another on our way to being able to do just that.

For our first few discussions I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what the scriptures say about righteous women.

I don't know about you but for a generic look at some ideals of womanhood I tend to think of the Proverbs 31 woman.

Proverbs 31:10 starts off by saying “who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far beyond rubies.” I think it's interesting because if you look through the translations – the hebrew word that was translated into virtuous was chayil. According to the Strong's Concordance, chayil is associated with concepts of strength, might, efficiency, wealth, ability, force, and army. Being virtuous was a strength even comparable to an army! This is no subservient, enslaved, sheltered woman, this is a woman of power and value!

So what are the virtues that give this woman her power and value? Proverbs 31 lists some possible answers. Some of the virtues that I see when I read through this section are that she is trustworthy, she is hard-working, she is prepared, she provides for her house, she understands business and industry, she looks after the poor, and she speaks with wisdom and kindness.

What are some of the virtues that you think are important for a woman that desires to be a strong and powerful force for good?

Thursday, January 1, 2015

A Fresh Start



Just a quick note here as the first day of 2015 wraps up. Around here it’s been a really great day – we’ve slept in a bit, gotten work done around the house, spent some nice family time together, the kids have gone through all their Christmas goodies again, played some games, made some plans for the new year, and worked on some goals. I know that every day won’t be like this but it’s definitely a nice feeling as we start fresh. Even though it’s just a random date on the calendar, it always feels like a breath of fresh air giving me renewed hope and strength to make the most of all the time that I’m blessed with. What about you? What has your family done to celebrate? Any big plans for 2015?