What does it mean to be a woman?

I have a soft niggle in the back of my head.

It's the next steps for a project God would like for me to plan.

I've been praying and asking for what comes next after A Bird Alone, and so far, I have this:

Write about biblical womanhood.

Well, okay.

It's interesting the journey that's led here. I have a minor in gender studies and absorbed pretty much every work Gloria Steinem ever published (not to mention Betty Friedan) from the age of twelve. I wanted to be these women because being these women meant getting my power back and shoving my heel against the head of the patriarchy.

And now? I laugh knowing human power is nothing more than a whisp of breath within the hand of a mighty God.

We get it all wrong from both angles.

When I was on Instagram, there were women who seemed to have some sort of pack, their dress and demeanor the same. Femininity was almost weaponized, and if you weren't in a long skirt and beautifully-crafted bun and didn't homeschool your kids, did you really know Jesus?

But then there was also the progressive sect–the type that knew Jesus as well as they knew the f-word, and they seemed to use both to indoctrinate women who lived in the gray. How easy to hear what our flesh wants and then to put a bright red bow on it, imagining Jesus outstretching his hand to give us the gift of our desires.

But here's the kicker–our hearts should extend grace to all Christian women, whatever their leanings.

Paul puts it this way:

One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:2-4)

However (let's go ahead and put that HOWEVER in all caps), we can't have true grace without absolute truth as God has handed it down to us. And the truth is that God created women and has a very important part for us in this play called life.

But what is that part?

I believe God wants me to write something that reflects His glory and answer the question of what it means to live Biblically as a woman.

My ask? That you pray for me as I start this journey and put the purpose of who we are firmly in God's hands.