Women, paintings and our crisis

Several years ago, I spoke at a religious event with a friend who had been an influential advocate and practitioner of religious freedom, she had been single for many years, but at the time she was a newlywed woman and a first-time mother. When we spoke, she admitted that her transition from a lawyer to a mother with a full-time son was much more difficult than she thought.

“As much as I love being married and being a mother after all these years of single woman, I didn’t realize how much I appreciated my work as a source of my identity,” she says with a little smile.

It’s very easy to confuse what we do with who we are.
As one sociologist said: “Most people define themselves by their work.
When people retire.
Do they need a story about who they are now?.

Can a change in what we do easily trigger an identity crisis?What is the story we will now tell others about ourselves?If I think that’s true for men, I think it’s different, and perhaps more obvious, for women, because our productivity choices are examined more often than men’s. That’s why the most controversial terms may be the dreaded working mothers, compared to the ”mothers who stay home”. If it were a simple description of the location of female productivity, that would be one thing, but these terms are burdened with guilt and judgment.

When your job is your identity, change can undermine that sense of identity. Comparison with others can lead you to maximize your identity. We are all sorry: it is a desire for meaning, a desire to be known and recognized, a desire to be validated by our work and our achievements. It’s not news. Even the author of the Ecclesiastes realized this:

Then I saw that all work and skill in the works comes from man’s desire against his neighbor. Is it also vanity and wind chase? Ecclesiastes 4. 4

The New Testament version of this discernment comes from 1 Timothy 6. 6-7:

“In fact, a great source of profit is piety with joy. Why haven’t we brought anything into the world and we can’t get anything out of it?

Because change can challenge our own identities, time and experience also frequently change our perspectives on each other’s identity. However, there is a greater change in the perspective of the identity that Jesus offers us.

I have this shocking image, a screenshot of the moment when Austrian paratrooper Felix Baumgartner looked at the earth from his capsule at an altitude of 38,000 meters above our planet, was just moments away from throwing himself and falling to the ground at supersonic speed. His stomach wallowed with the sick idea of being so noisy, but he couldn’t leave his eyes from the live broadcast, he was paralyzed by the perspective he had. All our efforts, conflicts, greed and sin seemed peacefully erased from his vision, yet he was about to embark on this again.

You don’t have to be an adventurer to change perspective, Jesus has already offered two women to escape their earthly opinions, yes, you know, I’ll talk about our acquaintances Mary and Martha, but I won’t say it. that you are more contemplative, carefree, dedicated or less busy, administrative, irritated (ok, maybe you should be less irritated) Nor will I offer you time management advice from these sisters. Do I just want you to consider the change of perspective Jesus gave you all day?for men and women.

In Luke’s account, Jesus had just broadened the question of identity with the story of the Good Samaritan; an interpreter of the law had challenged him to know who he was closest to loving as he was (Luke 10:29), and Jesus told him about the merciful Samaritan, a despised ethnic group that lived nearby. Then, “continuing their way,” Jesus took them to the house of Martha and Mary. Martha immediately rushed to participate in the welcome work of Jesus and his disciples. his feet with men, listening to Jesus instruct his disciples. Unlike most rabbis of his time, Jesus not only allowed a woman to learn the scriptures, but also told everyone that he was the wisest thing Mary could do: “Mary, therefore, chose the right part, and that will not be taken away from her?(verse 42).

None of the husbands were mentioned in relation to any of these women, nor to the children. Maybe they already had them, maybe they would have them in the future. There was no mention of his social position, whether in terms of wealth, social relations or professional skills, but his only identity, the most important, was what would exist forever: to be a disciple of Christ.

It’s the identity we have to assert between us, not the labels that come from the kind of work we do. As Christians, we must build on this identity, even when we add other roles and ways of expressing that identity in relation to others. We can have an interesting job for a while. We can be married for a while. We can have kids at home for a while, but can we take these things off?Or will they never be handed over to us? These are gifts just for this life.

Jesus promised that if we choose to sit at his feet, we will have made the best decision of all, we will inherit the best part, the one that will never be taken from us: a relationship with God, with his word and promise. of eternal rewards and life with him in heaven. In a simple phrase, Jesus changes our earthly perspective and elevates us above our daily lives so that we can see the importance of being His disciples. This change of perspective is all we need to solve a crisis identity.

Understanding the delicate balance between cultural influence, historical perspective and biblical authority in our role as women

At home, at work, in church and in culture?How did the three waves of feminism hinder God’s vision for women?And finally, how do you find out where to go from here?

Amid the radical confusion of our culture over femininity, Carolyn teaches the radical truth of God’s wise and elegant plan for women.

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