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December 4, 2009

Finding God in the Chatter

by by Nicole Unice

Last Friday evening, a casual outdoor party in my neighborhood culminated with a half-dozen girls sprawled across my living room. As they compared splits and talked about the upcoming school year, I held skinny feet in the air as each attempted the perfect handstand. I remarked to the gaggle that I thought I could still break out a split if not for the dress I was wearing. A lanky blond with hair as long and straight as her nine-year-old legs leaned into me, whispering conspiratorially: “Oh go ahead, it’s just us girls.”

Just us girls. The living room could hardly contain the beauty, joy, and potential of those women in the making. I marveled at being invited to witness such life.

I love being part of a generation that esteems women like never before and passes that on to these girls. Women have reached new heights of success in every arena. The world is a better place because of our achievement and innovation. Yet often our complex nature and this broken world crash together like the girls falling out of their handstands. We are all head bumps and soul bruises.

I wonder what will become of those free-spirited females as their lives expand beyond the cul-de-sac and elementary school, when the world’s messages threaten their joy. My night with the girls gave me reason to pause and think about what voices they’ll hear as they become women:

• Work a job that fulfills, raise kids that behave, and save time to perfect your tennis stroke and keep your hair highlights bright.
• Talk intelligently about politics, literature, social causes--and the cover headlines of US magazine.
• Embrace your maturity with grace while slathering on anti-aging cream and spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars achieving the natural look.
• Be a great lover to your husband and devoted to your family, but stay “hot” and maintain your own bank account, just in case.
• And if you are under 21? Well, then, you should know how to create a nonprofit, letter in three sports, and toss around sex as casually as the next fashion.
• Under 18? Know the square root of 121, the calories in the yogurt you ate for breakfast, and remember “self first” so that you don’t get hurt by anyone else.
• And no matter your age, maintain hundreds of casual relationships and deny the truth that you feel lonelier and less known then ever before.

On one level, we don’t believe the voices. We recognize that they are superficial, unrealistic. But our exposure to our ambivalent culture affects us deeply, creating in us confusion about how we are to live.

In the noise of this crowd, we owe it to our mothers, our daughters, sisters and friends to seek the voice of truth—the voice of God. Where is God’s voice and what—if anything—does he have to say to women?

As Christian leaders, we want to believe that God speaks into this mess, but sometimes it’s hard for even us to pick out the real gems of truth in the costume jewelry of our society.

So how do we do it? How do we point women toward the voice of God in today’s culture? When a woman, steeped in these cultural messages, walks into your church or social event for the first time, what do you think she’s looking for—and how do we provide it?

Posted by Caryn Rivadeneira on December 4, 2009 4:33 PM

Related Tags: gender roles

Comments

Nicole, WOW! You have captured the reality that we live in so accurately. "How do we point women toward the voice of God in today’s culture?" I think you've done of of the important steps here, identifying the lies that are out there, and separating them from the truth. I've been a Christian for 10 years, and have been mentored and educated in godliness by wonderful women of Christ. However, as a 26 year old swimming in the day-to-day and living out this faith in the midst of a culture often broadcasts anything BUT the truth from every media channel available, I often find myself slipping into believing many of the mantras you listed above. Believing them can be an almost subconscious thing, which is why it's so important to be reminded, as you have done, what is a deception and to arm yourself with the truth, so you can more easily spot out a lie, no matter how deeply embedded it is in "everyday culture."

Posted By: Erin H. | December 10, 2009 11:50 AM

People can become very comfortable in sin, and not even know they are far from truth, just as people can twist the word of God to suit there twisted desires. Seeking truth in the word requires searching out scriptures. Because God never changes, and he has provided truth in his word, if you seek truth! But seek in in more than one place in the Bible. Truth in the New Testament Bible is not hard to find told in prophecy or recorded as happening in the Old Testament. Let God lead you to the word by desiring truth.

Posted By: April S.M. | December 11, 2009 10:33 AM

Just like all the chatter we have to filter through to hear God's voice, we also have to filter through it all to get to the place of a deep, rooted friendship. It seems today that starting as girls, we will be best friends with someone as soon as we meet them. We immediately share every moment and secret with someone, not forming deep-rooted trust and respect. Then, the first time we try to gently guide or hold someone accountable, the friendship falls apart, leaving both parties scared, hurt, and unsure why the friendship didn't last. We need to go back to taking time to build relationships. Put the breaks on and really dig into each others lives. Let's be honest, how often do we actually make prayer time and Bible study with our girlfriends a priority? If we do take the time, then when those roots are deep and strong, the relationship will weather the storms and struggles of life. I think having those friendships, those deep roots with someone, helps us to focus on God and slow ourselves down. And when we don't, we have someone to help us tune out the world and put our focus back on God.

Posted By: Shannon | December 11, 2009 2:20 PM

God is GOOD!!! I plan to use most, if not all of this- top to bottom- in my sermon at our First United Methodist Church, of Galax, VA, on Father's Day Sunday, June 20th. I am entitleing it "Change, Good and Bad", with the text found in II Timothy 1:1-2;5. Your "Finding God in the Chatter", as well as the comments, has helped me to focus my message's last, and most important point that God wants us to hear. Pastor Donn

Posted By: Dr. Donn Bogert | June 5, 2010 11:01 AM

Good to hear your concern about Godly restraints in sexual matters. The right to do without God is a man made right destroying humanity. We pray that our children will continue to have the strength to keep their bodies. Good that Christian whites can reach out to our African children that God demands purity even from the white children they think they should follow as a way of modernisation. Illicit affairs have been with us here for ages but traditional culture restrained younger ones. All that is now fables.We now have sex- for -all by the year 2010 and it is saddening.

Posted By: Adenike | December 9, 2010 9:29 AM

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