A Life of Prayer

This year on Mother's Day, my pastor Dr. Rick Gregory spoke on motherhood. He had some very good points, and though I am not a mother it was things that could still apply to me now, and things that would be great to remember when I am a mom. One of the things he talked about was prayer. While I am unmarried and childless, I need to cultivate a life of prayer. My pastor was saying that though every believer needs to have this, it is especially important for mothers to have a heart that loves to pray. Even now, I need to be praying that my future children will be God-loving and God-fearing. I need to pray that they see their sin and feel a desperate need for Him in their lives. I need to pray that I will raise them well together with my husband. Of course, that is just one of the things that I need to pray for consistently, but that was mostly what he talked about since it was Mother's Day.

I really hope that as I grow older and mature and become more and more like Christ, I become a woman of prayer. Paul said to pray without ceasing. This means that we need to continually be in the mindset of prayer. I have days that I am continually seeking the Lord's face and asking Him to show me His will. Those days are the ones that I don't look back on and think of as wasted. Every morning when I wake up I need to remind myself of the gospel and ask God to never stop showing my need for His grace and mercy. My first thoughts should be praising Him for who He is and for the love that He shows. My mind should constantly be engaged, thinking about who needs prayer-for health, encouragement, salvation, etc.

The second semester of my senior year of high school, our school's superintendent Dean Hallberg became the teacher for my Bible class. He said that if it weren't for the prayers of faithful women, many churches today would not be in existence. Of course, he did not tell us this to say that women pray better or to discredit men in any way. He was just saying that very often it's the women who spend so much focused time on their knees. It was cool to hear a man who had been a pastor before acknowledge the church's need for women who are faithful pray-ers. What an awesome encouragement! As a woman who wants her life to be Christ-centered, it is good to see a specific thing I can do that will help God be more glorified in my life.

Without even meaning to....BAM!

I had thought that the first topic I would discuss would be something really awesome and deep like "fighting for time in the Word every day" or something along the lines of "not going by feelings but by doing what is right, regardless of how I feel". The idea of talking about modesty to begin with was something that crossed my mind but was immediately disregarded, partially because I thought it was too typical. Of course it is an important issue, but I wanted my first real post on the issue of being a woman the way God intended it to be "deeper" than modesty. I wanted it to be a heart issue that people struggle with, and modesty just did not seem like a good enough place to start.

Man, was I wrong. Without going into too much detail on how I got there, I was directed to C.J. Mahaney's blog, where he did a short series on modesty. I read each part of the series and was convicted. I realized that it was a serious heart issue, and that all issues of the heart are really the same. Immodesty, like so many other sins, is a result of wanting to please others instead of wanting to please God. It is just as big of a deal as any other sin issue.

Mahaney's blog used I Timothy 2:3-10 as its scriptural support. Over and over, he went back to those verses, showing piece-by-piece what it meant. He explained several things that I had heard before but were good to think about again. Mahaney talked about how modesty shows humility. He said that dressing modestly is a way to serve our brothers in Christ. In one of the short "chapters", he had two young men describe their fight to stay pure in their thoughts in the midst of immodest women. Those men described what a fight it was (even at church!) to have pure thoughts. One said that he sometimes had to walk looking at the sidewalk while listening to worship music because nothing else could guard his eyes from seeing things that he wanted to see and his mind from thinking things he did not want to imagine. Those young men, as so many others, really have to fight to keep their minds from going down the wrong road.

This spoke volumes to me. I teared up thinking of what I had done to my brothers in Christ. Have I made it hard for them to focus on conversations with me because of my clothes? Can they look at me without stumbling? Am I hindering their goal of God-pleasing thoughts? These guys are my brothers in Christ, and I may be making them sin rather than encouraging them to love the Lord more. Many godly men fight to keep their thoughts pure-am I helping them in their quest for mental purity, or hindering them? My prayer is that I, and anyone else reading this, fight just as hard to be modest as my brothers in Christ have to fight to think purely. I want them to be able to spend time with me and be able to relax, knowing that they won't have to constantly guard their thoughts from wandering where they shouldn't go.

I was so convicted by this and hope that I never forget this important lesson. I need to serve my brothers in Christ by paying attention to what I wear so that I make sure it will not hinder them. As I said before, I was not planning on discussing this topic quite yet in my blog. I did not even mean to come across the topic of modesty, but I did, and it was so in-my-face that I had to share it.

I'm going to end with one last question: Do the clothes I wear show that I am with the world or with Christ?

**An afterthought: This morning I remembered something relating to this that I meant to put in this post when I first wrote it, but forgot. During one of our dorm chapels (CDub, of course), our RD Amber brought up the subject of modesty and the way she put it spoke volumes to me. She talked about Adam and Eve, and how they were naked from their creation until their fall. Then, once they sinned and God came looking for them, they knew they were naked and had to hide from Him. Because of their sin, they had to cover their nakedness. I can't quite remember all that she said, because it was so early in the school year, and I do not want to mess up the doctrine, so I'm not going to go into more detail than that. Basically, they needed clothes to show their humility before God. When we clothe ourselves, we need to think about the fact that the reason to cover ourselves is to show our humility before God. If we are not properly covering ourselves, we need to ask ourselves if we are properly humble.

What This Is All About

Hey there! Recently the idea of this blog came into my head. I prayed about it and talked about it with a couple friends with wise advice. I, of course, was so excited about the prospect of doing something like this, and soon my friends became excited too. I know that God has specifically ordained the roles of men and women to be different but complementary. This blog may occasionally touch on the roles of men, but only to show the contrast that exists between their role and women's role. God has showed me much these past few years, especially this past school  year, what it looks like to be a woman who embraces the role that He has given.

I do recognize that part of biblical womanhood is learning from older, godly women. I also recognize that I am only nineteen years old. But my goal in writing this blog is not to teach, but to merely show what I have been learning and hope to encourage my peers to learn with me. Much of what I will discuss comes directly from the Bible and commentaries on it. Often, I will quote authors such as Elizabeth George, who are in the "older, godly women" category. I will talk about sermons that I have heard on being a godly woman. As you can see, though it is I who writes, my thoughts will be a compilation of what older godly women (and some men too!) have to say on this subject.

This is a topic that is controversial. This view of womanhood is becoming less popular and more offensive simultaneously. I realize that some people who come across this will think that I am old-fashioned and a little ridiculous. But I am not doing this for their sake. My goal is never to offend or criticize. I am just going to share what God is teaching me. My view of femininity is becoming increasingly "out-dated", but here is the truth on that matter: God does not change. Malachi 3:6-"For I, the Lord, do not change..." In other words, society's view on femininity has changed, but God's has not. I want to look to Him and see what He wants from me as a woman, because in doing that I know I will be able to please Him.