Wrapped Up (eBook)

God's Ten Gifts for Women

Cheryl Dickow, Teresa Tomeo (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
144 Seiten
Servant (Verlag)
978-1-63582-465-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Faith and the feminine genius are a natural combination. God gives every woman ten gifts to help her embrace her unique vocation. Drawing on both the deep wisdom of Scripture and a savvy grasp of modern culture, Wrapped Up will help you recognize these gifts, including: - Love - Forgiveness - A Joyful Attitude - Your Sisters in Faith God wants every woman to have these gifts. Let Teresa and Cheryl show you how to unwrap them, make them your own, and let them transform your life!

Textauszug

chapter one

THE

GIFT

OF

GOD’S

LOVE

TIMELESS | TRUTHS Cheryl

“A woman’s way to holiness is clearly to purify her God-given sensitivity and to direct it into the proper channels.”

—Alice von Hildebrand, The Privilege of Being a Woman

The Christian faith is—at its very core—a love story.

It is the ongoing narrative of the Creator’s love for us, his creations. And in turn, it is our love story with him.

Every woman who has ever lived, or will ever live, has a unique role in this love story; it simply cannot be written without her— without you, without me, without our future daughters and granddaughters.

It is both a passive and an active love story.

We receive. We give.

Women, by their very natures, are givers. They are doers and planners and organizers. Women accomplish great things in their homes, at work, in their communities, in their churches, and for their friends. Every single woman I know either labels herself a type A personality—and truly is one—or simply is a type A personality in all she does without the pomp and circumstance of the label.

Women get things done.

They always have.

And they give until it hurts; but it shouldn’t.

That’s where the other piece, the first and most important piece, comes in.

Women Are Receivers

Women are created to be great receivers of God’s immense love. The same spiritual DNA that makes them nurturers and givers is the same spiritual DNA that makes them ideal receptacles of God’s love. However, that’s the difficult part for most women—the passive part she takes in God’s plan: simply being the beneficiary of his love.

That’s why the suggestion that a woman should simply “receive” is often a foreign concept. That she ought to be filled with God’s love simply because she is his creature tends to be a notion that doesn’t fit well with the “doer” in her personality. But unless she receives, she cannot give; at least not over the long haul—and we are meant to be in this for the long haul. We are meant to finish the race set before us.

When a woman deems herself unworthy to simply be a recipient of God’s love (for any number of reasons, real or imagined), she cannot get his work done—she cannot faithfully serve God because she has not accepted what he has given her. To become a passive vessel for God to fill with love is an idea whose time has come; it is the divine design that must be embraced in order for a woman to live her life, her vocation, to its fullest—and then to be that love to others.

An Ideal Role Model

Sarah, as the first matriarch, is the ideal role model for what it means to accept God’s love and then mirror it to others.

Whenever I think of the term “matriarch,” I think of my Polish grandmother: a loving, somewhat formidable woman, always cloaked in a clean, ironed cotton apron or faded housecoat (still clean and pressed, though) with a rosary ever-present in the pocket. Interesting memories have stayed with me over the years. For instance, I remember how this matriarch gave her adult children (with my mother being the oldest of the eight) Easter baskets filled with sugary delights in the form of Mounds bars, M&M’s, and jelly beans. I was taken by the realization that my grandmother still saw her adult children as “kids” who would enjoy Easter baskets!

I fondly recall that my grandparents’ home was always filled with the delicious smells of homemade soup and Polish sausage. Upon opening the front door, my mouth immediately watered for the meals that had been prepared in anticipation of our arrival. I loved my grandparents’ oblong, wooden table with its center pedestal that was always the heart of family gatherings; adults sat around it in an assortment of mismatched chairs while kids frolicked below. At the time it seemed like the table was enormous. It wasn’t until my grandmother died that I realized the table was no bigger than most; it was the laughter that emanated from it, the tears that were shed around it, the games that were played below it, and the food that sat upon it that made it seem like a king’s banquet table to me.

The Infant of Prague stood mysteriously in a corner of my grandparents’ home and was surrounded by small candles in their red, candescent holders. Although I didn’t entirely comprehend it then, I now know that this woman, the matriarch of our family, was in constant prayer for us. As her clan grew, so did her responsibilities to be an affectionate, conscientious intercessor on our behalf. As we moved through life in a somewhat carefree manner, my grandmother was, no doubt, embroiled in the nuts-and-bolts of being a matriarch.

She was the essence of love—a selfless love that allowed us to be free; she had us covered in prayer long before we knew the need or value of it. She became a role model of a matriarch without ever realizing what she was to us. She simply was what God intended her to be: a woman who took care of her family. A woman whose trust and faith in Christ was beyond measure. With eight children, their spouses, and countless grandchildren, it was a faith and trust that was always being tested.

To be that woman—that authentic matriarch—she had to willingly, deliberately accept God’s love; for if she had not fully accepted and “owned” it, she could not have been it so wholly, so completely to us. Life would have knocked her down, taking the wind out of her sails, but it never did. She soldiered on like a matriarch should: confident in the love of God.

Chesed is the Hebrew word for “loving-kindness.” Sarah, the first matriarch, was the embodiment of loving-kindness.

From the time we are first introduced to Sarah in Genesis to the day of her death (which is said to be the day that Abraham took Isaac to Mt. Moriah), Sarah was the essence of what every woman is created to be: love tempered with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. We gain an important, necessary understanding from Sarah—the understanding that, in its truest form, committed love contains boundaries that are created and honored. We see that the love Sarah receives from her Creator and then gives to others does not overwhelm or exhaust her—which can often be the case with disproportioned love. This is why her example of chesed is so important to us today: She helps us learn how to love emphatically and yet wisely. To easily illustrate the necessity of this balance, consider that in God’s great love for us he does not give us all we ask. He tempers the love he has for us with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge of what is in our best interest even—or especially—when we cannot see it ourselves.

Sarah had many gifts, and she was also considered to be one of the most beautiful women who ever lived. Of her many gifts— or what might be called charisms—Sarah appeared to have had the gift of evangelization. As an evangelizing teacher, she worked alongside Abraham and converted many souls for God. Abraham is given credit for teaching the pagan men about the one true God, while Sarah is recognized for teaching the pagan women about the one true God.

A significant part of this evangelization was the literal way in which Sarah’s tent, where she physically lived, remained open to others; in a metaphorical way it could be said that Sarah’s heart was a tent open to all. In both ways, Sarah models the “open tent” as a way for us to engage the world with the love of God. She brings God into the home and from the home into the world.

Sarah clung to God, receiving from him all that is good. Her relationship with God was personal and unconditional. When God instructed Abraham to leave Ur of the Chaldees, his homeland, and journey to a new land, Abraham obeyed. At the time, Abraham was known as Abram and Sarah as Sarai. Sarai did not hear the voice of God but followed nonetheless, trusting in God. This act of faith on her part is one of the first examples we are given as women, as matriarchs, to be women of great faith in the face of the unknown. Sarai models for us what happens when we move forward in trust: We are transformed; we are changed. Just as Sarai becomes Sarah, we, too, become new women.

Sarah’s role as the seed of love in God’s plan for his people continues to unfold in the new land. It is said that the cloud of God—what we would call the Holy Spirit—hovered above Sarah’s tent all the days of her life as an indicator of the favor she had with God. This favor that began with the trust and obedience she showed as she accompanied Abraham to the new land continued as Sarah accepted God’s love and then mirrored it to her community. In this way, Sarah shows the twofold...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.2.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
• ISBN-10: 1-63582-465-6 / 1635824656
• ISBN-13: 978-1-63582-465-0 / 9781635824650