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Women face many lies against true womanhood to the extent that there is often great confusion about what it even means to be a woman. Some say that womanhood is casting off "enslavement" to a husband and climbing a corporate ladder in the workplace, politics, or some other professional area. Some say that womanhood is only doing work at home, period. Some say that womanhood is defined by wearing or not wearing fashionable clothes, makeup, jewelry, etc. For others, womanhood is defined by having children, and in some cases, how many children one has. Women will always find themselves chasing an elusive identity and dream unless they embrace who God made them to be according to the Bible.

Women must come to accept their femininity. God has made them different from men purposefully. Physically, they are different, being generally weaker and crafted to bear and nurse children, and they have different emotional needs as well. Peter exhorts husbands to treat their wives in an understanding way because they are different, being women, and men need to understand this (1 Peter 3:7). Women need more in the way of emotional intimacy and tenderness from their husbands than husbands need from their wives. If and when women try to go against the design God has for them in terms of their spiritual, emotional, and physical makeup, only pain, frustration, and disappointment will result.

Women must come to define womanhood based not on the culture or even what well-meaning Christians might assert but on the Word of God. The Bible says that a woman does well if she bears children (Psalm 128), and it doesn’t condemn a woman as inferior if she remains unmarried, does not have children, or cannot have children (Matthew 19:12). The Bible says that women should be workers at home (Titus 2:5), but it also allows for them to do profitable business ventures (Proverbs 31:16). There will be times when a woman will need to be the primary breadwinner. She might be single, her husband might get disabled, or the family might need her to work in order to survive. The Biblical ideal is for men to provide for their families (1 Timothy 5:8) and for women to stay at home to raise the children. Unfortunately, this will not always work out perfectly, and both men and women need to be willing to adapt and be flexible and understanding.

Women who are married must come to recognize that they have a specific role in terms of relating to their husbands. God created Eve as a companion for Adam. The Bible says that God made her from the man and for the man as a suitable helper for him (Genesis 2:18). The wife must accept that man is the head of the wife and that she is to subject herself to him, respecting him and his leadership of the home (1 Peter 3:1, Ephesians 5:22). Men don’t crave affection from their wives nearly as much as they need admiration, support, and affirmation. They want to know that they are doing a good job of caring for their families and in meeting the needs of their wives. As Ephesians 5:33 says, "The wife must see to it that she respects her husband." The wife is to enable and support her husband as the leader of the home, and this is complemented and supplemented by the truth that the husband must love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. God doesn’t ignore our desires, but He refines them and leads us to them. God doesn’t oppress us and withhold from us, but He gives graciously and protects. Such is the way it should be between the husband and his wife. When husbands love their wives unconditionally and with all dignity towards them, wives can find great freedom to be the women God desires them to be.

Women must come to see that godliness is the ultimate measure of a woman’s beauty. 1 Timothy 2:9-10 says, "Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness." The Bible is not against outward adornment (makeup, jewelry, stylish clothing, hair dressing, etc.) as long as it is discreet and proper, fitting of a woman of God. The message throughout Scripture about external beauty is that there is nothing wrong with it, but that it must not be taken to be more than it is. Godliness and the state of the heart of the woman is what matters most. As Proverbs 31:30 says, "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised."

A woman must guard her heart above all else, and she must be free to be who God made her to be. She is different than man, she is the complement for a godly husband, and she has different roles in marriage than her husband. She is certainly in no way inferior to men, and men who oppress women do a great evil. Truly, a woman who fears the Lord is a difficult find (as is a man who fears the Lord), but these will be praised by the husbands who are blessed enough to marry them, by those who are treated kindly by them, by the children who are raised in the nurture and admonition of the Lord by them, and ultimately by the Lord Himself.

"'Winging It" from Stan Smith

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