My and my sheeps are starting a series of ‘womanhood: serving as a female leader’. We will be talking about how to work effectively with male species on the awareness of differences in thinking and way of communication.
Thinking of it, it was a long journey for me to like myself as a woman. It started from my parents’ desire to have a son, and their expression of great disappointment when I was a daughter, again. Succesfully they produced a heir 11 years later, and commanded me to sacrifce for him with my life. I mean ‘life’ quite literally.
For past 6.5 years I’ve been obeying their ‘command’. While my friends were out shopping, shopping always meant ‘grocery shopping’ to me. To balance between a wild teenage boy, ministry and work was a lot to take for a girl just out of uni. Few years, I got up at 5.30am to pack 2 lunch boxes, and take him to school on my way to work, drop by the woolworth on the way back and pick him up from the school, then go for the shepherding or other meeting still in my uniform and come bk around midnight. Often I fall sleep standing next to the stove while stirring the rice at 12.30am. I lived a life of single mom in my 20s. This day my parents say it’s only possible for me to give my bro a pocket money because I am still not married.
I don’t blame them for their personal preference. And I am glad for them to have a son who is their glory and pride. I am not a girl who were seeking acceptance and hate myself to the point of burning all my pictures anymore. I am glad that God used me to raise my bro up in his very important period of life. Now praise God, he is a uni student and can stand alone. It seems another chapter of my life is coming to the closure.
Dad’s email to us says, ‘Son, conquer the world. Daughter, have a happy family.’ * Sigh* Yes,when I was a little girl my dream was to become a beautiful wife who cooks the dinner and waiting for a husband to come back home. Don’t get me wrong. Not in anyway I look down on such wonderful home moms. I recognize it is by far the most mysterious power of woman God has hidden in them – to enable men to be all they can be. (or, let them WANT to be)
But, hang on. I still have this something in my heart boiling that I just haven’t let it out. What was the initial calling of God in my life? Daniels are successfully doing well, my brother could stand strong and independant, I had numerous sheeps and all my 4 sheeps are the leaders in the house of of God, I seemed achieved much. But… There got to be something even more. How would I forgive myself if I just settle down and somehow get married and slowly but surely serving less actively, and live a life of BBQ and fish and chips?
NO!!!! I am going to live a life without a regret. As a woman. Why would conquering the world be only man’s job? Why would we even mention about a gender when talking about vision and calling? God doesn’t say ‘without vision man perish’ , he said ‘without vision, PEOPLE perish’. No matter who they are, if they don’t know what they are living for, they will die a slow death, disconnected, lost, empty, and meaningless. I’d rather live like a shooting star, burning brightly and totally consumed. So, here I am again, in front of the drawing board called life. I will search for the ways to get to the core of the heartbeats inside of me.
I don’t know how long or what will take me to get there. But I am ready to pay the price. Such will be my life.
“Copy that.”
