Hi all,
It has been a while, but for anyone who is still reading, I felt like it was time to share a thought.
Yesterday, I was with my wife and one-year-old daughter in the car on our way to a dinner out. As we drove down the road, the car in front of us for a particular stretch had a bumper sticker that led to a discussion in our own car. It read something like this: "Obedient women are never remembered by history." I'm sure the thought was that, for a woman to be really heroic, she has to stand up against the "status quo" and be willing to assert herself. Don't simply be a pawn in the "man's" game.
But I wondered what the implications of that message might be for our daughter strapped into her car seat in the back, and if that statement was actually true at all. I understand that, in our culture, "obedience" is something of a dirty word, akin to "subservience." But the Scriptures shed a far more positive light on the word. In fact, some of the Bible's most famous and most heroic women stand out precisely because of their risky obedience to God - risky in the sense that they had no guarantees of success or safety for being obedient. Esther is a woman who immediately came to mind. We are told that she was a very beautiful woman, but perhaps the thing that was most beautiful about her was her devotion to God and her willingness to stand for His people and to do what is right, regardless of what might happen to her. Another example is Deborah, a judge who led Israel during a low time in their history and challenged the men around her to be the leaders that God had called them to be. Yet another example are the Marys of the New Testament, the mother of Jesus whom "all generations will call blessed," and the friend of Jesus who anointed His feet and whose actions are recounted for every succeeding generation through the Gospel accounts. Today, July 16, is actually the day in which the Church commemorates Ruth, another faithful woman who lived by faith in God and trusted in Him despite the fact that she wasn't even part of God's chosen people to begin with.
Here's my point: godly women who live in obedience to Christ and fulfill the vocations God has given them to do need not feel ashamed. God remembers them forever, and allows their memory to stand as an example to His people for generations to come. I thank God for a beautiful, godly wife, and my prayer for my daughter is that she'll take her lead from Ruth, Deborah, Esther, and the Marys, and not from a bumper sticker.
