On matters of the heart of a woman.
A woman's heart is very close to her spirit. Many times I cannot tell the difference. But emotions are often confused with the
heart also. That is where there can be
problems. I've always been driven by my
heart. At times that meant that it was
my emotions, at other times my spirit. I
think that my heart is a combination of both along with the core beliefs that I
hold for myself. My mind influences my
heart but does not drive it very often. When
I think about my life and the directions that I have chosen over the years I
realize that I have always sought after love without even knowing that it was
Love - Jehovah God that was drawing me. Many
many rabbit trails in my life have drawn me away for various periods of time to
what seemed like truth then. But always
always Love was my goal, my passion, my reason for being. He sought me out, planted a desire for His
love within me and pursued me until I caught Him.
Relating to
God and growing in that relationship has been a challenge at times. There has always been the talk of milk vs
meat, theology, apologetics, doctern, denomination or the lack thereof, and on
and on and on. There are some interest
facts to be learned in these discussions to be sure. And a lot can be learned from history, like
how NOT to do it. There is nothing wrong
with learning, with knowledge, with intellect.
But it seems that in these discussions and as I read devotionals and
listen to teachings sermons and lessons that have been presented from a man's
point of view that primarily the predominate means of spiritual growth that is presented is to 'renew
the mind'. I must say that I kind of
disagree with this emphasis when it comes to women and a woman's mind and heart
in our relationship with God. Now don't
get excited and label me a heretic just yet.
I know that Paul told us to renew our minds in order to be transformed
so as not to be conformed to the patterns of this world. We must seek knowledge of God in order to
understand His will. But wasn't that instruction
also given to us intending to teach us that we must purposely and regularly
work to know Christ better and better relationally? Not just that we need to fill up our brains
with information about Him, but to consistently seek to know Him more and more
by getting His Word (His heart, love letter) into us, into our hearts, minds,
and spirits? We must write His laws upon our hearts and
meditate on them day and night.
If I were viewing
this and thinking about it like a man then that objective - to be transformed
by the renewing of our minds - would obviously be gained through the mind,
intellect. (but I'm only guessing here
since I'm not a man) Men do not seem to
be as open to emotions and able to be as heart driven as women are. So it stands to reason that they would want
knowledge instead. I figure that the
Word gets into their spirits and hearts that way. But it is not enough for me to just have
information about God to think about. I
need relational interplay in order to 'know' someone. I need to have images and to see pictures of
things. My heart needs to feel where His
heart is for me to get Him, for me to trust and for me to develop my
relationship with Him. I can't really
get to know someone by just reading about them even if the words are wonderful -
I can't feel their hearts. So I look at
things as a woman does. I do know that
the Holy Spirit illuminates the Word for us, that the words are not simply ink
on paper. But the notion that only my
mind is in control governed simply by information is foreign to me. If it weren't for relationships I would never
have wanted to know Him.
Am I saying
that we should throw away the books, eliminate the classroom, or forget the
entire world of knowledge and intellect?
Absolutely NOT! In the same way
that a woman can read a romance novel and get to know the characters within, we
can read the amazing love letter given to us from our Maker and come to know
Him more fully. But we desire and crave
relationships in order to feel His love for us.
We long for it to be demonstrated and played out in our lives. Church, this is our mission. If we do not live out His love for us we have
missed the whole point. Christ is
relational. We need to understand Him
and we need to feel Him. There is room
for both the mind and the heart, there is need for both.
Least I get
badgered for seemingly belittling a woman's mind, I do not mean to make it
sound as if women are not thinkers. We
are excellent thinkers, we reason and we plan and we calculate and we manage
our lives intelligently, but it is always within the backdrop of our emotional
makeup. Our emotions color everything we
are. Because of this, conversation
about how He loves us will always get our attention. Not so much, for many of us, the history
rules and logistics that went into the process. At least that's my opinion. I could talk, sing, discuss and experience
the love of God until I weathered away from lack of food and water. I can go to sleep easily in a discussion of
the 'shoulds', the dissection of rules and reasons for things and studies of
the wherefores.
Sorry. I'm a woman.
To me this
relationship between God and me involves information and interaction and
emotion in order to be real. When I
think of God, Christ, the Holy Spirit I feel them. I have images in my mind of how they look,
smell, feel, how they move, their facial expressions, their demeanor. I HEART them.
It's more than knowledge and more than emotion. My images may not match anyone else's because
I view them, know them, in light of my relationship with them and with everyone
else that has ever been a part of my life.
So how does
my own personal relationship with God look like? I have a hard time with the Father because of
some of my own father issues. I have a
harder time with the Holy Spirit because that aspect of God is hard for me to
envision, but I feel close and protected by Him. Actually the Holy Spirit feels more like a
Her to me than a Him. It's more of a
feminine feel because of the emotion that I have felt for and from the Spirit,
and how I perceive the movement of Him.
Jesus, well Jesus is my Hero, my Friend, my King, my Husband, my Savior
Redeemer, my Everything. I feel Him more
than any other aspect of God. Because He
was made flesh, He understands me, He gets me, and He still loves me! Oh how He loves me! That love is the cornerstone of my
relationship with Him. If I had never
felt that love from Him I would have never been drawn to Him. So yeah, feelings, emotions, my heart.
All of the
above to say this: I speak from my
heart. Period. Sometimes my brain gets
in the way and messes me up royally, so I try to avoid that if at all possible.
(that would be hilarious to a man) My 'reasoning' is that when I speak from my
heart, even if I mess up, it is real and truth to me and a place for common
ground, to build on, or to reject, but real none the less. I have no room in me for playing games, being
phony, misleading anyone, or living a lie.
I am and have been guilty of attempts of manipulation at times, and I'm
sorry when I realize that this has happened.
It is not always intentional. But
in my defense, most of the time it is because my heart tells me that changes
need to be made in a loved one and I am trying to influence them in what I feel
is the right direction. This is always
out of love and concern for them. It is
not always wise, not always smart, but again, it comes from my heart and it's real. I would never ever desire to harm anyone at
all.
There have
been times that I have tried to disconnect my heart and spirit to try to figure
out if my heart was leading me in the wrong direction on certain matters. I find it impossible to do. They are so intertwined that I cannot figure
out where my heart ends my spirit begins and ends, or where my connection with
the Lord fits within or between them. I
don't even know if it is possible or even necessary to try to separate them. At
any rate I know that with the spaghetti type mind of a woman everything weaves together
all aspects of her life with all other aspects of her life. There is no differentiation that I can figure
out with respect to how we see the world - it is through the lens of all aspects
of us, all that we are made of. Men on
the other hand seem so capable of compartmentalizing everything. So much so that often there seems to be no
connections within them at all. I have
no idea how that works. It's quite the
mystery to me.
Makes me wonder how the species has made it this far.
Of course I
can not presume to speak for all women. But
I know lots of women, and the ones that are real, the ones that are honest and
sincere seem to be in the same boat as myself.
Of course we all live our lives of hearts and emotions ruling us in a confluence
and of differing degrees. It is a matter
of being in a fluid state, at any given time in our life cycle, our hormonal
cycle, the moon cycle, etc. etc. etc.
The woman's world is a world of flux, ebbs and tides often full of
emotional turmoil. Some of us are better
at mastering the emotional and hormonal influences of our bodies and
makeup. I can't help but think, yeah
Lord, what WERE You thinking???????
Every woman I know craves stability.
Gee I wonder why? Could it
possibly be so that we would be drawn to
men, to their strength, their sense of stability, their ability to remain on
task, unencumbered by the fly-by-night emotional turmoil that plagues our every
thought feeling and in every moment of our lives? I'm thinking that this just might have been
part of the plan. Ok God, you do have it
under control.
This is my
butterfly and rock principal. Women like
butterflies are caught up and tossed about by the winds of our emotional
hormonal lives, sometimes able to control our direction and sometimes not. We feel like we NEED rocks to tie ourselves
to in order not to feel like we will be blown away. To us rocks represent all that we do not have
the ability to be. (though throughout
history we as a gender have tried and tried to be rocks to no avail) Rocks are sturdy, unyieldingly strong and
ever present. They do not move without
great effort. They are security and
shelter from the winds and storms that would tear us apart. They can hold on to us and keep us from being
tossed into oblivion, they are safe. That
is so very attractive and sensual to us.
Butterflies love to perch on rocks, warm themselves in the sunshine on
them, feeling their strength, their character.
Butterflys want to feel like they have a refuge. Butterflies love rocks. Rocks on the other hand it seems from my
perspective do not necessarily NEED butterflies. But butterflies seem to be so intriguing to
them that they greatly desire to be around them, and to perhaps have one of their
own. They love the freedom that the
butterfly represents. They love the ability
of a butterfly to allow themselves to be taken up to the heavens for rides, to float
on the wind and be able to see great distances, enjoying the view, feeling the
air where it is clean and light, and not heavy with their earthbound weights. Rocks like to watch butterflies. They love to see their beauty. They want to touch and feel the delicateness
of them, feel their wings brush against them.
Rocks love butterflies.
I guess that's why the species does continue. We, the butterflies allow ourselves to be
'caught' by men, the rocks. And rocks
seek out the most beautiful alluring butterfly that they can find to catch and
have for their own.
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