I was upset.

It happened again last night; it has happened way too often and every time I get a little more furious.  I have sat across from girls who are excited about small things.  About lingering glances, online conversations, clumsy texts, faint hints of what they really need to hear.  And each time my pep talk gets a little more ranty.  I was practically yelling last night.

I am tired of meeting undiscovered beauties.  I do not understand, I do not understand at all this great lack I see.  I want to line all of the fathers and brothers and boys and men up and ask them What is wrong with you?  Don't you see that God made male and female and He called us good?  And God used His voice, His words to tell us what we were? 


Then maybe when a girl meets a boy who uses fast words it won't sink into her heart so deeply.  Maybe she'll look at him and say, I know.  Instead of Really?  Because I can sit there and tell her that she's beautiful.  That her spirit is captivating and her smile is fierce and that there is a depth to her soul that moves me towards Christ, but there is something magical about hearing it from a father, a brother, a man and I can't even begin to touch that.

I have heard heavy words, so many times women have told me that they don't understand confidence, they're not sure they have what it takes to attract another person. I'm not sure what you're supposed to say to a girl who has been allowed to get to that point.  When I was small, my dad told me I was pretty and when I was grown he started in on my spirit.  I have a brother who thanks me for challenging his heart.  My grandpa compliments every dress I wear.  I had teachers and uncles and friends who taught me what it means to grow into the old beauty of the Scriptures.

And then those girls tell me they've never heard those words, not when they were young, not when they were going through changing years, not now.  And it makes me furious for them.  And loud.

I sit in classes and I listen to the great disservice gender does to us.  I listen to what gender studies find, what feminist studies find, what queer studies find.  And I get very, very sad.  It is all so simple, this large mess we're in.  I want to stand on my desk and shout, listen: there is something wonderful about being female.  Something wildly lovely and intelligent and worth being celebrated.  And there is something wonderful about males, something that excites me and awes me and invokes the deepest respect.  The mysterious difference between the two is perhaps my most favorite.  Please, don't take that away from us.

In a world that makes relationships, interactions, exchanges so confusing, it is hard to recognize what it was God called good, it is hard to remember we're made in His image, all of us, and so we have the mark of something great on us and a profound potential for beauty.  I read His words and I see it everywhere- we're a people worth saving.  He rescues us over and over again, He redeems us and makes us new-- pushing us further into His likeness.

This grace is our confidence, this love is our beauty and we must remind each other.