My friend Jake asked me to write a guest post for his blog recently. He has been focusing his blog lately on gender issues within the church, and asked me to write about being a woman as a member of Christ's church. I chose to write about the passage in 1 Peter that says a "quiet and gentle spirit" is the path to beauty in God's eyes.
If you are interested in reading this, you can visit his blog:
Notes from a Small Place
After reading it, I would love to hear your thoughts. What do you think it means for a woman to have a "quiet and gentle spirit" ?
As I read your post on Jake's blog, I'm reminded of some comments made to me while I was a girl/young woman growing up in church...
ReplyDelete"Don't you ever wanna get married?! Well, you won't ever get married if you keep up this obnoxious behavior. It's intimidating to guys." - A comment made to me during youth camp by a well meaning youth leader after seeing me laugh really loudly and make animal noises with a group of boys during dinner. Fortunately, at 16, I wasn't considering getting married anytime soon.
"Gina, you sing, which is cool... but you also play the guitar and wanna lead music at FCA meetings. That's kinda masculine, don't you think?" - Spoken to me my sophomore year in college by a Christian guy friend who I loved and respected.
Thankfully, although those comments threw me for a loop for awhile after they were spoken, I was eventually able to brush them off and realize they were lies. I may not be the quiet woman smiling shyly in the corner of the room, but people (sometimes people who don't even know me) trust me. Time and time again people have trusted me enough to tell me their stories... even when they are ugly stories. So there must be some quietness and some gentleness in me somewhere... because I still often engage in obnoxiously loud laughter at "inappropriate" topics of conversation. And I still play the guitar, and on occasion, lead music in a worship setting.
Kayla, well spoken!! So many times those with a personality that is quiet is considered "correct" vs. those of us with a type A personality!! A gentle and quiet spirit is a reflection of the heart, not how quiet and demure I can be in public-and since I'm not demure, that ain't happenin'!! :-)
ReplyDeleteYou have become so much like your mother. Your wisdom is beyond your years!