Significant Women
It is so hard for me to believe … I am pinching myself as I write this … but my 11th book is being released in just a few days!
What a miracle, indeed!
I have dreamed of being an author since I was a 7-year-old girl with long blonde braids and a myriad of ideas that tumbled around in my thought life!
Mrs. Dombrowski, my second grade teacher, was the one who saw the potential in the shy country girl and who called it forth. What a gift she was to the foundational years of my life!
For the next few weeks, in my blog, I will be sharing excerpts from my new book which is entitled, “Significant: Becoming a Woman of Unique Purpose, True Identity and Irrepressible Hope”.
It is my desire that after reading a few snippets from this book that you will feel compelled to read it in its entirety.
“I hope that this quote, spoken over a century ago by General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, will send a chill up your spine and give you reason to set your gaze defiantly to the future: “Some of my best men are women!”
Isn’t that an interesting quote from one of the most powerful Christian leaders of the nineteenth century? With his high estimation of the female gender and its capabilities, he certainly was a man before his time. It was nearly a century later, in 1975, that Time magazine gave its “Man of the Year” award to “American women.”
“Some of my best men are women!”
Now that you’ve considered these profound words for a moment, let me stretch you just a bit farther....
I wonder if the same words are not also in the heart and mind of God at our moment in history.
I wonder if, when the Father looks down from His bird’s-eye view of all that is happening on the earth today, He turns to His Son, seated at His right side, and, with a twinkle in His eye, echoes the words of William Booth: “Some of My best men are women!”
And I wonder if the Holy Spirit, who is most certainly eavesdropping on the
conversation, raises His fist in the air in complete agreement with the Father. I wonder …
God is looking for “a few good men” and “a few good women” to make a difference in His kingdom at every juncture in history. Perhaps the Father, who created all of us in His heart of love, is not as concerned with the gender on our birth certificate as He is with the condition of our heart.
I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy.... Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. —Joel 2:28–29
Now, more than ever, women need to understand their important role and their significance in the call and intent of God.
God’s plan is that His Holy Spirit would endue humanity, both male and female, with power from on high. Men and women receive the same power in the same measure. The power that both men and women receive from the Holy Spirit includes the ability to be courageous witnesses and to fulfill the God-given mandate that is particular to each generation.
What is God calling you to do through the power of His Holy Spirit?
The days of cowering in fear, hiding behind insignificance, and wallowing in lack of opportunities are over. God is blowing doors wide open for women as never before.It is time for us to march forward in grand anticipation of all that God can do through even one woman who is submitted to the call of God and filled with His Spirit.
A woman’s voice in the marketplace, in the church, and in the home offers a perspective and a tone that is valuable and unique.
We are not fragile clones of our male counterparts; rather, we have been outstandingly fashioned by the God of the universe for a role in the story of humanity that is utterly feminine, powerfully impactful, and undoubtedly irreplaceable.
The Holy Spirit of Pentecost has been poured out upon your life! What will you do with this gift? Don’t waste these days of power and open doors!
When Peter received the Holy Spirit, thousands of people were saved.
When John received the Holy Spirit, lame men walked.
When Paul received the Holy Spirit, prison walls fell down.
I believe that God is looking at your life, this very day, and, with a twinkle in His eye, He is reminding you that some of His very best men, indeed, are women!
“Significant women.”
“We are women, and my plea is, Let me be a woman, holy through and through, asking for nothing but what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and
with all my heart whatever that is.”
—Elisabeth Elliot
Thanks for listening to my heart this week. As you know by now, my heart is truly not a perfect heart but it is a heart that is filled to overflowing with gratitude for the life I have been given and for the people who walk with me. And, it continues to be a heart that is relentlessly chasing after God and all that He is!