There are many movements that promote empowering we women, yet with each new wave, we seem to lose our way a bit more. A good majority are not more in the foundation or anchored with the core issues. So on today's podcast I will be speaking about the power of femininity, feminine Queens and Feminine Warriors. We are meant to be feminine and Warriors. We are meant to be warriors in a uniquely Feminine Way. Warrior, Queens, Warrior, princesses, crowned and gowned yes, but being gowned were ready to fight too, and I don't mean to fight in a combat battle style that we think of when we say fight. The women do serve in this role and attempt to prove that we can do it all yet capable doesn't always mean we should now stay with me. Don't get mad and turn off. Please hear me out. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should or that it's the best, and this applies to many other women's movements in our contemporary culture, and these aren't necessarily grounded in the foundational issues, but have peripheral temp attempts to prove something. There is a war that rages single, married with kids or without. We each play a role in this cosmic battle called life. It is not about eradicating the men and their masculinity, although there are certainly seems a movement to do this very thing. Men are needed to operate in life in their unique ways. We need their contributions to life and this world, not according to the current feminist dictates, but according to creation mandates, the war that rages. It's subtle and unseen. I know far too many angry women who with just a few additional inflammatory issues, rage at the injustice of it all. Certainly there are injustices, but these are not alleviated with anger or trying to totally dismantle what it means to be masculine. Women. We're not always right and men are not always wrong. The men who have been deplorable need to take responsibility for their horrible actions. Women, not all that men do is deplorable because not all men are rotten. Guys, our role as women has over time been misunderstood and misrepresented with culture shifts. There has been waves of feminism to reclaim what our roles are currently. There is what is known as the third wave feminism and perhaps there's even a fourth movement and it seems with each new wave we've drifted the mark of the issues, our anger and our raging at the injustice of it all has taken away from the core issues, so like with the first edition history books, subsequent additions often drift from the first hand account. It's not as accurate and with each addition, that's after that, it becomes less accurate. This hold true for the feminism movement and more on that in a bit, but now what I see is a movement that could be called feminism as it is comprised of women and those supporting femininity. This rise and call to action aims to establish what femininity truly is from a firsthand account. It is an unseen seldom notice battle, but it is there and it has a cost. Whether we actively are participating or not, and with all this, it affects our soul. Are you feeling weary and worn out? Heartache and soul pain overtaking your life? An unsettled feeling of wanting to do something or knowing that there's more to this life because this unseen battle for femininity has a high price. It's been raging for decades, millennia because unnoticed, and even if we don't join in the core issues, still beckon to be addressed and we feel it at a very deep level. So ladies, where do you go when the ache of your heart begins to make itself known? That there's got to be more that these injustices with the femininity at movements attempt to address. Where do you go when that unsettled spirit announces the need for attention. Some of us do get involved in movements and they can be good. They can be a force of good, and then sometimes we fall into buying something in the attempt to feel better or perhaps indulging in food or we might get lost in a book or a TV series or daydreaming and fantasizing about a different life. Or perhaps you just allow your life to be consumed with business. Because if we stay busy, we don't have to deal with these hidden soul issues. We're too busy to address them. Some of you I've seen go into super woman mode and try to do everything and all by yourself and you do a decent job with it. The appearances show that because then if we do it all, if we are that super woman mode, then we won't feel undone yet our soul still speaks differently and the longing is still there, so on the surface we may appear all together because we are busy, seemingly efficient, professional, and perhaps tough as nails. We are trying to prove that we can do it all and that we do all that men do, but on the inside we are losing ourselves. This conquest of what it means to be a woman. So we find ways to sue sue our souls and our minds. We do this, as I said, with fantasy food or some other numbing addictions to try to remedy the ache, the desire in our heart and these activities.

They're not benign. They entangled themselves in our lives and in our hearts choking out the life we wish to live as they become relentless addictions or default habits. Perhaps our default response to life and hurt and pain and the struggle of what it means to be a feminine warrior, so each of these activities become an issue when we turn to them for solace in an attempt to find a sort of source of fulfillment, to know what it means to be feminine or a feminist. So what exactly is this battle we are involved in? What role do we women need to play in this cosmic war? What is our part in being a warrior, in partnership with others, regardless of gender. The battle began thousands of years ago and it is a war that continues to rage Adam and eve partners in all that God created fully living in the design for each of their unique lives. They enjoyed fellowship with God, walking with him in the garden. Adam, first of creation had life breathed into him by God Almighty and Eve. God's crowning glory of his creation because he pronounced it. It all was very good when he arrived on the scene, but what eve did, she did her own thing and Adam, he abdicated. He just watched. He did not take up his role as masculine and eve tried to usurp her role as feminine and the consequences have affected and impacted humanity and all of life ever since you can read about this account in the first three chapters of the book of Genesis in the Bible, so now that all of human humankind destiny has changed, so has our role as women, and it began as a slow erosion of what femininity and masculinity we're designed to be the consequences they have been growing exponentially ever since. If you read the biography of Jesus, you learn he elevated women to their proper place in culture, a culture that often degraded women and treating them as second class citizens. Jesus did more for women's movement than any wave of feminism. It's worth worth reading the account about him. The historical account. Alls you need to do is pick up one of the gospels. It's in the new testament of the Bible and read Matthew's account or marks or johns. These are firsthand accounts of Jesus's life with Luke, a second town to count. He interviewed people and had a firsthand account, but he wrote it and it's second account, but that's an aside, so these firsthand accounts of Jesus's life alltel about his stories of how he elevated women. Jesus was a supporter of women and perhaps I could even say the original founder of the women's movement really just read his biography, but you must read it enlightened by the culture of that era to see what he did for women and you will be amazed at what he did. There is the account of the woman at the well. She was from the race of the Samaritans who were in constant contention with the Israelites. Least two races. They would avoid one another at all costs, even walking miles out of their way to avoid one village. Yet Jesus went straight through a Samaritan village. Met this woman. She just happened to be at the well midday to avoid the other women. Why? Because she had a tarnished reputation. She's had five different men in her life. Yet Jesus began to speak to her, which is taboo anyway, and more so because she is a Samaritan, so not only Jesus shouldn't have been speaking to a woman, he should have especially not have been speaking to this woman, but he spoke truth to her and she was amazed and her life changed, and then there was a woman with a bleeding issue. It's been said that she may have been hemorrhaging going through the change of life we don't know, but he deals with this. She's had this issue for 12 years. The doctors haven't been able to do anything for her and she's out of money. No one could help her, and she spent all her money. She had on a cure. She heard of Jesus and learned that he was walking through the town, saw the crowds following him. She only touched Jesus, him of his cloak and was immediately healed, and then Jesus took the time to acknowledge her and her faith. This during an era where whirlwind were never to be noticed or acknowledged or seen yet, Jesus lifted her up by his word and his kindness and she was healed. And then there was this woman condemned for adultery and ladies, you and I know it takes two to commit adultery. Yet this account of what Jesus did for this woman only has the woman publicly accused. I've heard it said that she was drugged out probably in the act of adultery. Where was her partner? My point in sharing this is to listen carefully what Jesus did for this woman. So the crowd had already picked up stones to throw at her, stoning her to death for adultery. And Jesus calmly told the crowd that the one who has no sin and he meant did no wrong, did everything right should be the first one to cast the stone. One by one, the stones were dropped, and the woman remained in Jesus's presence, Jesus, the only one could have cast the stone standing before her. Officer forgiveness and compassion Jesus tells her to now go and sin no more. He didn't expect perfection when she came, but he offered love and compassion. So Jesus has done a lot for women because women were important. We are the crowning climax of creation after each creation act. You can read this in Genesis, God proclaimed it was good, but when he created eve, he said it was very good so we women were important and that's why the battle is important too, and women's role in life reveal what we reveal more of God's character created in God's image as his image bearers. What we women by our nature tell others about God, is that he is relational. He desires and enjoys intimate relationships. He nurtures and cares for his people. He has a heart for romance and he too has a beauty to unveil. These are all things we women do by nature and it is because this reflects part of who god is. Every woman to some and varying degrees enjoy romance and relationships. We nurture and demonstrate compassion. Each one of us has a beauty to reveal a beauty that indwells us that is beyond just the physical beauty. We long to be noticed this. This is confirmed with social media as we curate photos and selfies and touch ups to present our most lovely physical self. We want to look our best. We want to shoot for looking pretty and some of us still pursue this and some of us have given up, but beauty, it's a delicate thing and the physical beauty, it will fade and go into cover, but the soul beauty that I'm talking about, the soul beauty that each one of us has, it's delicate and it will retreat into protection if threatened, and this happens far too often, this hiding this, this insulating against the pain takes many forms, some of which I referred to earlier and sometimes it just erupts in anger, so perhaps we become ultra tough acting as if we have it altogether, but we have a sneaking suspicion that we are operating as a fraud or maybe we become more reclusive and seek the hermit lifestyle where we feel isolated. Insulated but safe femininity. Think of women depicted in art, beautiful form, beautiful spirit, peaceful her essence captured in her reclining, relaxed pose. Women in classic art had a softness about them. Gentle eyes, relaxed pose and face. She is inviting, peaceful and at peace with her femininity. Art communicates about the era and classical art captures women in their full power and beauty of femininity. We women have the power to inspire others to be better. We nurture comfort and invite others into deeper relationships with a message of peace, women operating and true femininity and true feminism. Demonstrate a facet of the message of God's prismatic character. All will be well. Beauty flows from the inside out and is often reflected in our appearance and part of the beauty and feminine power is the gift of presence, unguarded undistracted, fully present and engaged. Now, think of men depicted in our strength, in action, doing work, warring battles, etc. This masculinity demonstrates another message about god that he will come through, that he is our victorious warrior. So our unique roles reflecT portions of god's character. These roles have come under attack, hiding the created order of things, and we thereby miss having god's character revealed to us and through us to others. Eve denied her created nature and essence of women when she reached to grasp and take control, and this has trickled down to us reaching, grasping, striving. Sometimes we are described as bitchy or clinging, annoying. Codependent, we have relinquished the power of being feminine and grasping for something that does not fulfill. We women often feel like we are too much because we hear it. We're too emotional, too sensitive, too harsh, too controlling too over the top to cleaning too bossy or there other messages we received that we are not enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not smart enough, not popular enough, and what we are called to do is to be a woman who arouses the best in her man and the best in those around her. We're to wield our feminine power, not competinG with men or competing with other women, but to use our gifts and talents and abilities to reach and bless and encourage others, and this is where we are fulfilled and this is where a joy filled life comes. Equality, equal pay for equal work. That's a good thing, but meeting quotas so that women are represented in different forums isn't what we should be fighting for because meeting quotas does not create equality in any realm. If quotas are the goal than equal competence, competency is not. We want to fight the good fight of what it means to be a woman that uses her unique and alluring gifts and talents. Feminine queens, feminine warriors. This is who we are. This takes courage to live in our true identity. It is a brave woman who steps out in this role against the tide, leaning into our unique feminine mystique, and that's my challenge for me and for you to live in that feminine power that reaches out, blesses, nourishes, nurtures, and loves others and leads the way of a loving relationship. Thanks for tuning in. This is sandra vernon with face society and you've been listening to the art of connection. Please consider subscribing. I would really appreciate it and also if you could take some time and give me a rating, that would help me too.