Legacy

“If ever there comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.”

-Matthew Arnold, Nineteenth-century British Poet and Philosopher

It is clear that there is a war on women taking place. When war is declared on a country or group of people, it is because they are, or at least perceived to be, a threat. Who are we a threat to... and why? 

The Eastern world is seeing the attack on women in a different way than we do in the West. It shows up in different ways depending on the region. China has the one child rule and is gradually coming to realize that they have aborted generations of wives and mothers. Where will the next few generations come from? We see gendercide taking place in India as well, young child brides in the Middle East, female mutilation in Africa and women being sold into sex slavery all over the world. 

The attacks we see on women in the U.S. and other parts of the Western world are bit different in nature, but no less heartbreaking. The number of young women with eating disorders and self condemnation that turns into behavior like self-cutting has skyrocketed in the last decade. The standard of unattainable physical beauty set before women has  led to confusion, hopelessness and a desperation to reach the standard, no matter the cost. The message that our worth as women is related to our sexual prowess continues to spread in Hollywood and through mass media through commercials, movies, TV Shows and music videos. No wonder women are confused...

When I lived in New York City I attended a multiple different secular conferences and charity events to raise support and awareness for the daunting challenges women are up against. It was powerful and encouraging to see men and women taking up different causes and sharing stories of educating women, with the hopes of creating lasting solutions. It’s hard to not feel hopeless facing the seeming odds in many of these struggles for Human Rights and freedom for women, without understanding who the enemy is and what his strategy is. The answers are spiritual in nature. The War on Women is all over the world and the goal is clearly to destroy us. Who is to blame? Who are we really fighting against? Hollywood? Marketing Executives? The Taliban? The Red Army? To understand this epic battle, lets go back to the very beginning of history. The very beginning.

The first couple pages of the Bible give us interesting background. God, the original creative designer and artist, spoke into being a magnificent world and put a ton of cool stuff in it. Trees, oceans, mountains, birds, sea creatures, suns, stars, galaxies and animals of every kind of variety. As awesome as animals are, they were not created in the image of God. In the creation account only Adam and Eve were created in his beautiful, intelligent and creative image. Genesis 1:26-27 The woman named Eve, which means “Life-giving” or “Mother of all who have life” is created as a solution to the first problem. The man is alone. He needed a partner. The crowning moment of all creation was the cameo of the woman. God decided to make this man and this women, together as a team, responsible for looking after all he had made and they began that journey in perfect and unbroken fellowship with God and nature in Paradise.   

Eve, is the only woman in all of history who never knew the meaning of misunderstanding, guilt, shame, envy, bitterness, estrangement, embarrassment and grief, until she listened to her enemy and began to doubt God. This led to the first sin of distrust and then disobedience. Spiritual death happened from the inside out as we read in Genesis 2:15-25,3. Ann Spangler describes it this way: “Suddenly, darkness rushed on Eden. It came, not from the outside but from the inside, filling their souls with shadows and cravings. Order gave way to disorder, harmony to discord, trust to fear.” There is so much more insight to this story regarding mankind, but I just want to focus on the woman right now.

Chaos and disorder always produces consequences. With Eve’s initiation and influence over Adam to join her, they together rebelled against God and disregarded God’s instruction to not eat the fruit of this one tree in Eden. Now....

Genesis 3:14-15

So the Lord God said to the serpent:

“Because you have done this,
You are cursed more than all cattle,
And more than every beast of the field;
On your belly you shall go,
And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life.
¹⁵ And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”

The physical beauty meant to be endless begins to deteriorate. Spangler, in her book “Women of the Bible”, creates visual imagery and describes Eve during the birth of her third son, Seth (after her first son Cain, became a murderer and the younger son Abel, the victim): “Her skin, damaged by sun and age, now stretches like worn canvas across her limbs. Her hands are restless spiders, clawing the hard ground beneath her, grasping for something to ease her pain. She can feel the child inside, filling her, his body pressing for a  way of escape. The cries of mother and child meet with streams converging. Seth is born. With her child cradled against her breast, relief begins to spread across Eve’s face. As she rests, a smile forms, and then, finally, laughter rushes from her lips. Try as she might, she can’t stifle her joy. For she remembers...the promise God gave: sooner or later, despite many griefs, her seed would crush the serpent. The woman would win.”

There it is. This is the beginning of the story and the end of the story.... The solution is going to come through the woman. Her offspring would be the long awaited answer that would eventually bring the fatal blow to the serpent’s head. However, we find ourselves on earth now somewhere in the middle of this unfolding story.

In the dark days we exist in, we must reject doubt of God, but instead adopt trust like Job did in times of great sorrow and loss. 

“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27)

Well, if I have an enemy that is terrified of myself and other women, then that must mean we have power we don’t yet recognize and a part to play in a bigger story.