It’s been a minute since I have posted something. Life got busy for a while and the dust has finally settled long enough for me to catch my breath. Luckily for me, my mind never stops racing and God never stops speaking to me.
A couple of months ago, I was randomly minding my own business and the word “woman” came to mind. For whatever reason, I started to daydream about my childhood and how I couldn’t wait to grow up. I got the vision of me in my favorite black and white polka dot dress twirling around until I got dizzy. Now, to this day, I cannot remember how I came to own my infamous polka dot dress but lets just say, I wore that dress everyday after school.
EVERYDAY
As soon as I would come home from elementary school, I would change into this dress and spend hours spinning around the house so that the skirt would billow out into a wave of polka dots. It got to the point where my family was sick of me wearing this dress that on many occasions, they tried to hide it from me. Some how, I always seemed to find whatever nook or cranny they hid it in and would go about my evening twirling around the house. I felt like a princess. I felt girly.
That little polka dot dress because my standard of beauty and femininity.
Fast forward a few years and I am about 12 years old. My days of twirling around the house in my favorite dress were behind me and I was desperate for something to make me feel pretty again. I begged my mother to allow me to wear make up or to wear my hair down with pretty headbands like the other girls I knew, but she refused. She didn’t want me to grow up to fast. In typical pre-teen angst, I figured my mother’s sole purpose on Earth was to ruin my life. Yet on Easter Sunday, when I was twelve years old, she did the unthinkable.
She bought my first pair of heels. They were lavender with a small heel, both of which I’m sure equaled a fashion fail but I didn’t care. I had heels! I was alive again. I was pretty again.
In my eyes, I was a woman.
From that point on until I left for college at 18, I wanted to embrace every aspect of being a woman. I loved to dress up, wear heels, & spend hours at Claire’s looking for pretty silver jewelry and hair accessories. Sure, I played sports, was an avid wrestling fan and by all means, was a tomboy, but I felt the most at ease in my own skin when I tapped into the feminine side of me.
But, then it all changed. Life happened. I became an adult with responsibilities. Kid, college, bills, empty relationships, another kid, dreams deferred, heartbreak and years of being distant from God. Somehow, I managed to keep my head above water after all these years, but the waves washed away bits and pieces of me that I loved. I lost that innocent desire to embrace womanhood and feel beautiful again. Prettying myself up became less about my own desire to feel good about myself but more about the attention I could get from those who I depended on to make me feel good about myself.
The enemy has a way of perverting something that God intended for good. I believe He delighted in my love for my womanhood even at a young age. I believe that He found joy in watching me twirl and laugh for hours on end or the sheer pleasure I got from learning how to walk in my first pair of heels. He made me a girl. He instilled in me the innate desire to love all that it means to be a woman. He took pleasure in seeing me love who He created me to be.
Since taking that stroll down memory lane, I have been thinking a lot about beauty, femininity, womanhood and the like, only to realize how much I miss it. I find myself browsing through magazines more and window shopping. I’ve started to feel like God was bringing me to a fork in the road and asking me to travel down the road I had long forgotten. My heart reminded me of a verse in Isaiah 61, my favorite chapter in the Bible which says:
“They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.”
When I was farthest away from God is the time where I lost my desire to love, embrace, and cultivate the woman He created me to be. During that time, the enemy pervert what God intended for good. The enemy destroyed pieces of me that to this day, I sometimes wondered if I would ever get back. But, those verses reminded me that God is more than capable of rebuilding and restoring what has been destroyed.
I feel like I am entering a new season. Like God is giving me the green light to twirl in my polka dot dress and wobble around in my new heels. He is re-igniting that child like innocent desire to be the woman who loves being a woman. I have no idea what this is supposed to look like but I am enjoying how God is peeling back the layers and breathing life into me again.
