From a distance I marveled at my friend as she led her team through a voice of inner confidence that resonated with fortitude, poise and assurance. Tears misted over my perspective that few were privy to, for I knew the sting that remained on her skin from the insults, names and rumors hurled past her only 30 minutes prior.
My friend is a strong woman.
Strong. Woman.
Independently, those two words speak positivity, life and affirmation.
Strung together, they can go either way. “Strong woman” connotes a woman of bravery. Proverbs 31 details the virtuous woman, “Strength and honor are her clothing; she shall rejoice in time to come.” (v.25). Yet there’s a flip side to the phrase “strong woman” too, that can stir up uneasiness in some. Whether it’s rooted in historical context, cultural context, or even isolation of Scripture without the progressive revelation of God’s purpose to call, equip and empower women, the words ‘strong woman’ together can also stir up a worldly batter of “b” words…bold, brazen, and more.
A pastor I once served under relayed a comment about the “strong women” we had in that church. It was not said with positivity, but delivered with a passive caution for awareness, and relayed with uneasiness and underlying aggression. I pondered over the hearts behind it with heaviness, and even some of my own baggage, for the same demonstrated characteristics that are often celebrated in men, when packaged in a woman, become a b-word. But in a breakthrough, in the midst of that conversation with the church leader, God spoke clearly to me: “celebrate it”.
Celebrate the strong women.
I do. I truly do have strong women in my circle… women of courage, heroic, with spirit and spunk. They are stalwart and adventurous, gutsy and gallant. Their strength is not motivated though, in the outer voices and pep-talks that tell them they matter. The secret to the strength in those I know as “strong” is their inner humility. Each woman I celebrate is unpretentious and steady, nourished by the unnatural strength and power from Jesus to walk in a lifestyle of obedience to Christ when the world woos them to back down, back off, back away. They are not silenced when God says “speak”, but confident in Christ-minded action, and Christ-like in attitude. They are women who stay connected to the Vine; their reputations do not mute the inner Voice inside them, nor are they fortified or molded by media, striving for just the right selfie to post, nor by the naysayers and noises telling them who they are not, how they should look, and who they are.
Strong women are the ones fortified by their best friend, coach, trainer, counselor Jesus Christ, who pours into and invests in them day after day after day…and in turn His strength pours out. That is real strength no person can forge, fake, or fabricate on her own. Their identity, durability, stability and tenacity is rooted in the affirmation of Jesus Christ who declares them worthy, honored and beloved.
FOR THE EYES OF THE LORD RUN TO AND FRO THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH, TO SHOW HIMSELF STRONG ON BEHALF OF THOSE WHOSE HEART IS LOYAL TO HIM. ~2 Chronicles 16:9
I celebrate too, seeing a generation of women rooted in Christ collectively becoming stronger in who we all are, knowing Whose we are. We are not afraid of having honest conversations with ourselves (vs “about” ourselves), allowing Jesus to fix the broken pieces, heal the wounds and restore us to a new strength.
Let’s all celebrate every woman who desires all God wants for her…even more than she fears it or what comes with it. That is a strong woman.