Forgotten femininity

I know I have touched on this topic before, but this past week, the speaker in my discipleship training school taught on inner healing and I was struck once again with the importance of understanding and celebrating our distinct nature as men and women made in God’s image. This message touches a deep area in my own heart, so I thought it was worth writing another blog post about!

Two main questions that young women ask, deep in our natural hearts, are “Do you notice me?” and “Am I lovely to you?” Beginning at a young age, little girls often look to their parents subconsciously to answer these questions for them as they begin to explore their femininity and learn to identify their place in their families and in this world. “Do you notice me?” their hearts ask as they dress up and dance in front of their parents. “Am I lovely to you?” they wonder as they watch their parents’ reaction to them. As these little girls age, so much of their confidence and security in their femininity is rooted in their parents’ implied answer to their often unspoken questions concerning their own intrigue, worth, and loveliness. As they age, they begin to look to the boys around them to answer that question. In God’s design, we would go to Him for the answers to these questions, but so often our fallen human nature points us instead to the horizontal, to our parents and the males around us to answer these deep-rooted questions of worth and beauty.

In my own life, I realized this week that I often assumed the answer to my questions of notice and loveliness was “no”. With every “no”

to my unspoken questions, a brick was added to the wall now surrounding my feminine heart. There were many people and instances that added bricks, and while there was no one large traumatic event that told me I was unnoticed and not lovely, there were many little instances that added up. After 21 years of my heart asking if I am noticed, and if people like what they see, and so often feeling as if the answer was “no”, the walls have grown pretty high.

This week, my wounded but well-guarded heart was cracked open as I allowed myself to grieve for my forgotten femininity, hidden behind walls of strength and masculinity that I had adopted as a defense tactic. My unconscious mantra for much of my life had become, “If they won’t love me, at least they’ll admire me.” I knew that what was admired in my family, and in broad American culture, was hard work, strength, and competence—and these are not bad things, but they do not speak to my deeply feminine heart.

Now, I am allowing Christ to tear down the walls, brick by brick, and He is bringing healing in this vulnerable process. I spent a lot of time this week staring at my gaping heart wounds, feeling powerless, vulnerable, and honestly, not feeling beautiful or feminine at all. My wounds led me to believe that I would be less desirable to God and to others because of them. Yet as I spent time looking at Jesus, it struck me that He too is wounded. Isaiah 53 reminds me that He, too, was not noticed, not desired, not esteemed, not found beautiful, not valued. Jesus, too, was rejected, overlooked, and deeply wounded physically and emotionally.

Yet Jesus’ wounds do not disqualify Him from dignity, honor, or glory. In fact, His wounds are the very reason why I love and honor Him so much! His wounds reveal His humanity, His life, His love. His wounds are precious to me, and as I look at the mangled hands that lead me to the Father, declaring that I am forgiven, beautiful, and loved, I am filled with love and gratitude for the holes in His hands. If I, as a broken human, can love Jesus more for His wounds, how much more must He love me for my wounds?

Jesus understands my pain in not always being noticed, desired, valued, chosen, protected, or seen as beautiful in the way my feminine heart craves. He is wounded in these areas as well, and Isaiah 53:5 says that by these wounds I am healed. For most of my life, I interpreted this verse to believe that His wounds save me, but I didn’t understand how they healed me. How can someone else’s pain heal my own? I asked the Holy Spirit for further understanding in this verse, and He brought to mind group therapy, which is often led by a counselor who has been wounded themselves, but has now found healing and freedom. Because they have been through a similar situation as their clients, and found healing themselves, they are best qualified to lead others through the healing process.

Isaiah 9:6 calls Jesus “Wonderful Counselor”, and indeed, He is the best counselor, as He is able to sympathize with our weakness and pain (Hebrews 4:15, Isaiah 53:2-5). Because Jesus is wounded, He is best equipped to understand my pain and to walk me through the healing process.

This week my heart is humbled as I sit in these revelations—revelations of my own wounds, met with equal revelations of the depths of His wounds, and how that enables Him to not only love me more, but to truly heal me. I am beyond grateful for these revelations, and the long-forgotten embers of my feminine heart are now being stirred by His gentle, healing breath.