The "Good Christian Woman"

All Christian women live in the shadow of the infamous "Proverbs 31 Woman". She does everything right,  works late into the night and rises early each day, all her children love and obey her, all her words are wise, she always has a home cooked meal on the table, she is soft-spoken and submissive to her husband and authority, and she never has a hair out of place. All I can say is... How exhausting! Quite frankly, I don't think there is one woman alive who could live up to the standards she sets. Or at least, if they did they could hardly be happy.

One thing I have learned lately, is that no matter how hard I try, I cannot fit the mold of the stereotypical "Good Christian Woman". I don't always have my hair in place or my homework done. I'm often late or forgetful about important things. I don't read my Bible every single day and I sometimes forget to pray before I eat. I am not quiet or reserved. I can't hold back how I feel or hide it at all, nor can I seem to easily quench the flood of words that always beg to flow from my lips. 

I wear my heart on my sleeve. I am too loud and I get excited easily. I love to talk and be in the middle of the action. I am always busy and doing something. I love to be around people and I am a very "huggy" person. "Reserved" is one of the last words anyone would use to describe me.

For the longest time this bothered me. I have tried to make myself be the traits I thought would make me that "Good Christian Woman". I wanted to be able to fit that mold. But I don't. No matter how much I would try, after a certain amount of time, I would break. I couldn't go against the grain of how God made me.

What God has been teaching me lately, is that I don't have to fit that mold to be a godly young woman. I can be me, the me He made me to be, and still search after His heart. I can be too loud, forgetful, and too open with my emotions, and He will still love me. I can even be seen as a godly young woman by others while still being me and not fitting the stereotype. I can exhibit the godly characteristics of a "Good Christian Woman" through my own personality in my own way. My way will not look the same as another woman's, but that doesn't make it wrong, just different, because God made me different.

Sometimes this is still difficult for me to fully accept. My brain will often wander to the land of, "but what do young men think of how I am? What are they looking for in a wife?" But it is then that God always reminds me that the man he has chosen for me will love me for who I am, not what I may try to be. Yet it is difficult to keep from subconsciously conforming to what I may believe young men might look for in a young woman, simply out of my deep-rooted desire to be loved and desired. It is a battle I constantly have with myself.

Slowly I am learning how to accept who God made me to be, and to sort out what is me, and what is the influence of society and expectations. It is certainly an interesting but painstaking process. I will continue to learn, however, and be better off for it in the end.