There was a time when the false messages of this weekends' women's march would have frustrated me and angered me.
While I think that they are confused at what real suffering and unfairness is, I also think that it is, for many, coming from a deep place of pain.
Our culture has taught us to strive for more and more and to throw off constraints in many areas, and that we as women need to be just like men. It has lead us away from finding our peace and happiness with God, and to try to find it in our work, our beauty, our relationships, in anything other than our savior.
I must remember when speaking that I must be gracious
and seasoned, so that I may perhaps draw others to him.
They only way I can do this, which is against my nature, is because
I didn't watch the march or the speakers - though I've seen snippets.
But what I've seen made me sad.
I also have seen friends FB pages with their agreements with this march, and I do know that many marched for many reasons. But it is telling to me the teaching they've had that they can really think that Planned Parenthood is about women's health care, and that women don't have access to health care without it, or that women need to be empowered, because we don't have any power.
Really? Everywhere I look there are women in all areas of American life. Running businesses, holding political office, working in their homes, educating children.
There are real injustices in the world in the treatment of women.
I read this on my FB feed -
To Women who march for Women, this says it ALL:
**"I am not a "disgrace to women" because I don't support the women's march. I do not feel I am a "second class citizen" because I am a woman. I do not feel my voice is "not heard" because I am a woman. I do not feel I am not provided opportunities in this life or in America because I am a woman. I do not feel that I "don't have control of my body or choices" because I am a woman. I do not feel like I am " not respected or undermined" because I am a woman. I am not a "victim" because you say I am.
I AM a woman.
I can make my own choices.
I can speak and be heard.
I can VOTE.
I can work if I want.
I can stay home if I want.
I control my body.
I can defend myself.
I can defend my family.
There is nothing stopping me to do anything in this world but MYSELF.
I do not blame my circumstances or problems on anything other than my own choices or even that sometimes in life, we don't always get what we want. I take responsibility for myself.
I am a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister, a friend. I am not held back in life but only by the walls I choose to not go over which is a personal choice.
Quit blaming.
Take responsibility.
If you want to speak, do so. But do not expect for me, a woman, to take you seriously wearing a pink va-jay-jay hat on your head and screaming profanities and bashing men.
If you have beliefs, and speak to me in a kind matter, I will listen. But do not expect for me to change my beliefs to suit yours. Respect goes both ways.
If you want to impress me, especially in regards to women, then speak on the real injustices and tragedies that affect women in foreign countries that do not that the opportunity or means to have their voices heard.
Saudi Arabia, women can't drive, no rights and must always be covered.
China and India, infantcide of baby girls.
Afghanistan, unequal education rights.
Democratic Republic of Congo, where rapes are brutal and women are left to die, or HIV infected and left to care for children alone.
Mali, where women can not escape the torture of genital mutilation.
Pakistan, in tribal areas where women are gang raped to pay for men's crime.
Guatemala, the impoverished female underclass of Guatemala faces domestic violence, rape and the second-highest rate of HIV/AIDS after sub-Saharan Africa. An epidemic of gruesome unsolved murders has left hundreds of women dead, some of their bodies left with hate messages. Or the 7 year old girls being sold or married off to 60 year old men, Or the millions of women sold and bought into sex trafficking.
And that's just a few examples.
So when women get together in AMERICA and whine they don't have equal rights and march in their clean clothes, after eating a hearty breakfast, and it's like a vacation away that they have paid for to get there...
This WOMAN does not support it. " (Reposted from Brandi Goings Atkinson written by **Holly Weber Parker)
The celebrated icons you hold up like Madonna, etc. have used their bodies to sell their latest fashions, music, and projects. Ashley Judd complains that men in movies will make more millions than her millions, while single mothers in this country can barely feed their children. Most of these women leading you will leave the March in their private jets, feast with money you have spent on their products, songs and ideology. They have spent decades convincing young girls that you have to be skinny and sexy - they flaunt the very body parts they now scream should be protected. They look at the unborn as an inconvenience. Stop drinking the Kool-aid, girls. Find your leadership from women who hold onto the only Hope we have for a fallen world: the Almighty God.
This is what makes me so sad. We've been taught, as a culture, to hold up these celebrities as people we wish we could be. If you read anything about their personal lives, it is crushing heartache. They may smile in public, but their hearts! They are in such pain that the only thing that can come out of them is pain.
These people too, are pawns in the hands of people who have bigger agenda's - you can read about that here.
This is what I've seen happening -
I want to remember to speak Truth in LOVE.
Not my truth, which can be changed on a whim, but on Biblical Truth. Not what tickles my ears and makes me feel good about myself.
I don't claim to know it all or have all the answers. But I know that One who does.
