Someone Gets It

"I would like to begin by stating one huge assumption that I bring to this task tonight. I mention it partly because it may give you an emotional sense of what I hope you become because of this conference. And I mention it partly because it explains why I minister the way I do and why this message sounds the way it does.

My assumption is that wimpy theology makes wimpy women. And I don’t like wimpy women. I didn’t marry a wimpy woman. And with Noël, I am trying to raise my daughter Talitha, who turns 13 on Saturday, not to be a wimpy woman.

Marie Durant
The opposite of a wimpy woman is not a brash, pushy, loud, controlling, sassy, uppity, arrogant Amazon. The opposite of a wimpy woman is 14-year-old Marie Durant, a French Christian in the 17th century who was arrested for being a Protestant and told she could be released if she said one phrase: “I abjure.” Instead, wrote on the wall of her cell, “Resist,” and stayed there 38 years until she died, doing just that (Karl Olsson, Passion, [New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1963], 116-117).

Gladys and Esther Staines
The opposite of a wimpy woman is Gladys Staines who in 1999, after serving with her husband Graham in India for three decades learned that he and their two sons, Phillip (10) and Timothy (6), had been set on fire and burned alive by the very people they had served for 34 years, said, “I have only one message for the people of India. I’m not bitter. Neither am I angry. Let us burn hatred and spread the flame of Christ’s love.”

The opposite of a wimpy woman is her 13-year-old daughter Esther (rightly named!) who said, when asked how she felt about her father’s murder, “I praise the Lord that He found my father worthy to die for Him.”

Krista and Vicki
The opposite of a wimpy woman is Krista and Vicki who between them have had over 65 surgeries because of so-called birth defects, Apert Syndrome and Hypertelorism, and who testify today through huge challenges, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well”; and this: “Even though my life has been difficult, I know that God loves me and created me just the way I am. He has taught me to persevere and to trust Him more than anything.”

Joni Eareckson TadaThe opposite of a wimpy woman is Joni Eareckson Tada who has spent the last 41 years in a wheel chair, and prays, “Oh, thank you, thank you for this wheel chair! By tasting hell in this life, I’ve been driven to think seriously about what faces me in the next. This paralysis is my greatest mercy” (Christianity Today, January, 2004, 50).

Suzie
The opposite of a wimpy woman is Suzie who lost her husband four years ago at age 59, found breast cancer three months later, then lost her mom and writes, “Now I see that I have been crying for the wrong kind of help. I now see, that my worst suffering is my sin—my sin of self-centeredness and self-pity. . . . I know that with His grace, his lovingkindess, and his merciful help, my thoughts can be reformed and my life conformed to be more like His Son.”

Way to go, John Piper! Speaking on The Ultimate Meaning of True Womanhood at the 2008 True Woman conference, he gave this incredibly beautiful list of strong godly women and what they did.

This is what we women need to hear. We don't need simply to be told to and how to submit so we can "help" our husbands in their spiritual walks. We need to hear about good Christian women who've come before us so those women who don't have godly mothers to look up to will have a woman role model, not just men to try and emulate.

Let's face it. It's a very confusing time to be a woman too.

I know we have older women in the church to be examples to the younger women, but it's not very common to see this taken very seriously.The mentoree needs to see how that person handles situations and conflict. How she treats others regularly. The way she conducts herself outside of church and during her daily routines. It takes more than seeing her an hour each week at church, and it's a big job to take someone under your wing and mentor that person. Because we do lack in this area, these kind of topics are so important. Women are hungry for it. They're yearning to know that they too can be valuable tools for God to use. We have a lot of work to do to erase the stigma we've placed on women just because they're women.

Praise God for giving men like this the wisdom and courage to go there!