85/444 Healing from Infidelity: Female Gender 4
2011.11.29
So we've talked about how Women are designed to be Relational and to Invite. We are also designed to Nurture.
I mean, think about it, can a man feed a baby from his body? I don't think so! Man is unable to bring forth a living, breathing being from his body, which is truly one of the most awe-inspiring miracles God designed women to experience. God certainly gave us a gift as women, the ability to sustain and bring forth life.
Every time I consider the birth of our children, I remember just how stunned I was at the absolute miracle of life. There was no baby, and then there was a baby. It was hard to wrap my mind around the reality that this beautiful, fully formed, ten-fingers-and-ten-toes little baby was brought forth from my belly. And not only was she and he delivered, my body sustained her and him completely and met EVERY need she and he had during her womb-time. A-Mazing. Truly amazing.
I believe this is part of why the loss of a child, whether in the womb only 3 days, 3 months or even still-born is excrutiating for mothers. It is our design to nurture, and when our babies don't survive, we feel our bodies have betrayed us, or worse, that God has betrayed us. Even more devestating to our souls is when we have chosen to end the life that could have been. I don't have any answers for that sorrow here, but know that I mourn with you and for you if this is your story.
As much as our bodies are designed to nurture, so too are our souls and hearts designed to nurture. This goes back to the relational design we've been so blessed to receive from the Father. Our hearts are designed to ache for and care for others, to want to reach out and enfold them into our arms and our 'nests'.
It is, once again, when the world has gone awry that we lose our desire and ability to nurture. We find ourselves overwhelmed or bound up in fear or shame or any number of darknesses that invade our minds and our souls. We then stand by with arms crossed and heart closed to anyone who dares enter our worlds with a desire (that we oft interpret as a demand) that we give, nurture.
But we are daughters of Eve, whose name literally means 'life spring'. Life springs from us. We are givers of life. Life of flesh and blood. Life of heart and soul.
20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. Genesis 3:20