“NATION CHANGER”

{This was the final entry in a series I posted on Facebook entitled “Heart of a W.O.M.A.N.”. It is a message very much on my heart during these days as both an encouragement and a challenge—to me and all my fellow sisters—to take God at His Word and walk in His ways…no matter what.}

We all want to make a difference. Man or woman, every person is born with a desire to leave their mark on the world and, as Christians, we desire that mark to leave it a better place.

But how can we actually do that?

As women, we hear all kinds of messages from all kinds of sources as to how is the best way for us to impact society. “Stand up for yourself”, “make your voice heard”, “be true to yourself”, “resist authority”, “control your destiny”…the advice and demands placed upon us are truly endless. But are they true? Is always looking out for ourselves first and making sure we as women take center stage the greatest way to bring justice, “make change”, impact our world for the better?

Or might God have a far more effective strategy?

In Titus 2, the Bible says the older women should teach the younger women to “love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers [literally, “guardian of the home”], good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.” Doesn’t sound very glamorous compared to most modern feminist messages, does it? However, for those who have yielded their lives to God and followed His path no matter what the world around them says, this way always proves to be the most powerful method of influence a woman can have. History is crammed with it. Every woman I have mentioned in this series, every woman in Scripture who made a positive impact, every good woman throughout history who has literally changed the course of the world has done so by embracing God’s design for femininity. The examples are incredibly varied but the principles are always the same.

And I want to end by sharing with you two of my favorites.

One was Abigail Adams. The daughter of a New England Pastor, Abigail was the wife of our second American president, John Adams, living during the glorious, yet terrifying days of the Revolutionary War. Brilliant, Godly, and fiercely patriotic, Abigail was nevertheless content to stay in the background—content to simply love her family and run her household well. But her influence stretches to this day. Along with being a devoted wife, Abigail raised a son: John Quincy Adams. She taught him to love Jesus Christ intensely, to cling to the Word of God, and to always stand for justice. John Quincy would go on to accomplish a mind-blowing amount of worthy achievements, including becoming our sixth president, and he also became the mentor of a young man named Abraham Lincoln—helping to instill within that young man a deep conviction that slavery was against the ways of God.

Around this same time, another Christian housewife named Harriet Beecher Stowe—at the encouragement of her husband and children—began writing stories. Eventually she wrote a series for the local newspaper entitled “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, based off a personal experience she had in watching a family of slaves be separated at an auction. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” became an overnight phenomenon and its influence was so profound that when President Abraham Lincoln met Mrs. Stowe in 1862 he is reported to have called her “the little lady who wrote the book that started this great war”.

Truly, one could reasonably say that the freedom of the slaves is, in large part, due to two housewives.

Abigail Adams and Harriet Beecher Stowe wouldn’t fit the mold for the “modern woman”. They would be mocked, lectured, and pretty much despised for their submission to the ways of God. Yet without their humble, steadfast commitment to what the Bible said a woman should be, the slave trade might still exist in America today. Two homemakers who simply embraced God’s design for femininity…

And changed the world.

Like Abigail, we may never know the way God chooses to use us in impacting the nations. Or, like Harriet, we may get to see that impact and hear when our works “praise us in the gates” (as Proverbs 31 says). Each woman’s life is unique and priceless—a story only she can live and only Jesus knows the outcome of. But one thing we can know for certain: if we trust God and follow His ways with all our hearts, He WILL do, “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us…” (Ephesians 3:20-21)

May we give our feminine hearts to Him completely during these crucial days and let Him do with them what only He can do.

Even change the course of a Nation.

CHOOSE HEROIC,

CHRISTIS JOY