Thursday, March 8, 2012

We Are All Daughter's of Eve!!

We must start this conversation about "mean girls" with an understanding of who we really are as women.   I have been given the wonderful opportunity to travel to different countries to speak and begin to know women from other cultures.  What I have discovered is that--we are all the same on the inside!! For some reason that was a surprise to me.  No matter what skin color, what age, what language, what economic strata, or whatever difference--women have the exact same hopes and desires.  Our needs are: to know that we are loved, to love someone, to believe that we are beautiful (to someone), to know that we are safe, and to understand that we really matter.  An honest look at these needs will reveal that our meanness comes when one or more of these needs are unmet.

The first and probably the most important need is to know that we are loved! It begins as soon as we breath our first! If we go to the book of Genesis we find a world of perfection where God walks daily with His beloved creation.  There was no doubt that He loved the man and the woman we call Adam and Eve.  There was no doubt.  But in chapter 3 that doubt enters the lives of these creatures and causes Eve to listen to the words, "Did God really say???"  Doubt.  Fast forward to today.  Doubt.  Doubt about all the needs we have....does God really love me???  How can He love someone who is___________.  But the fact is, dear ones, God has never changed His mind about loving His precious children..He still loves those whom He made in His own image and breathed the very breathe of life.

The problem is that we have allowed that very same doubt to enter our minds and our hearts.  Doubt is the strongest weapon that our enemy has against us.  Think about it.  What causes you to feel insecure?  What causes jealousy?  What causes envy?  Doubt that you have abilities?  Doubt that someone truly loves only you?  Doubt that what you already have is enough?  I could go on but I think you get the picture.  Closely related to that doubt is fear....and so what we tend to do as women is to try and take control in the situations we find ourselves...tear down another's beauty, try to get others on our side against another, desire what the other woman has and the list goes on. We try to alleviate that fear and doubt on our own...and wasn't that what got us in trouble to start with???  As Dr. Phil often says, "How's that working for you???"  It isn't!!

The answer is simple...believe what God has said about you: that you are His precious child, that He will never leave you or forsake you, that He loves you with an everlasting love...and that He has plans for you that far outshine any plans you have for yourself.

This might be too much for some of us to grasp all at once so we are going to break it down each session to what our enemy tells us and what God has said.  Once we begin to understand His truths in our lives, perhaps the "mean girl" in all of us will disappear.  I hope that God will do a mighty work these next lessons....we need each other!!