Women's Night Session 1

When I read the the story of the creation of Eve, I cannot help but believe that God created her with a beautiful vision for femininity. She was created to reveal to the world something about God and His love that Adam could not reveal. God has planted that vision, His original intent for woman, in the deepest desires of the female heart. As little girls, I think we think we get that. When I think back to when I was a child and I look at little girls today, I see a hope in the greatness of that vision. Little girls have big dreams. And they are dreams of deep love, true compassion, and fairly tale beauty. The desire for those dreams (the dreams God intended woman to have) are alive in the hearts and hopes of little girls. Then I look at my peers or I look at teenagers, I don't see the same hope and joy in the eyes of these young women. Young women today are broken and hurt. They seem to have no more hope in the vision God gave them as little girls. So the question is, what happened? It's tempting to say that as little girls, we were too idealistic. And that as we have grown older and become young women, we now have a stronger grasp of reality. It's tempting because it makes us feel better, and it doesn't challenge us to change. But it ignores the truth of the matter. We have to acknowledge that the desires of the female heart are God-given desires. He created us to long to be loved. He created us for the happiness and beauty of fairy tales. As young girls, we relish in that fact. But somewhere between little girl and young woman, it starts to scared us. The part of the story that people like to leave out is that part that shows us the purpose for these desires. They are meant, first and foremost, to draw us deeper and deeper into the love of God. There is no human being on this earth, there is nothing in this world that can completely satisfy us. We were created to find our fulfillment in God. The world around us tells us that we have to find a way to fulfill ourselves, and we begin to worry that we won't ever have our desires met. So somewhere between 3 and 13, we start putting on a little more make-up; we learn how to flirt; we put others down to try and make ourselves feel better; we strive to keep up with the images the media feeds us; we watch romantic movies, hoping to catch a glimpse of the dream we once hoped in; and we begin to give pieces of ourselves, emotionally, mentally, and physically to guys and to the world. The sad part is, we are shattering our dreams. And we don't even realize it. In this process, we get hurt. We become even more afraid of the Truth, because now the Truth isn't just that we need God. Now, the Truth is also that we are broken. That we've been hurt. That we've been pursuing satisfaction in all the wrong places. We don't want to admit how broken we really are. In John 8: 31-32, Jesus tells us that we can be His disciples. He tells us that the Truth will set us free. The brokenness that surrounds us, that traps and stifles modern femininity doesn't have to be the reality of our lives. God's intent when He created Eve is still His intention today. Even though we have lost sight of the vision, God hasn't. Through all of the complexities of the female heart, through the emotional messes, and through the broken dreams, God's perfect vision for woman remains. The first step to embracing that vision, is to live in the truth about what we have made it.