Cages.

 "Lord of the Rings: Two Towers" has several amazing scenes. This one is just about my favorite...
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Aragon: "What do you fear my lady?"

Eowyn: "A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them. And all chance of valour has gone beyond recall or desire."

Aragon: "You're a daughter of of kings, a shieldmaden of Rohan. I do not think that would be your fate."
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Whoa.

What is it about this moment that strikes my innermost being like no other?

Because my deepest fear is not becoming who I was created to be. 

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It's been a journey for sure.
For years- try a decade- I took 1 Peter 3 out of context: I became a quiet, submissive, don't-laugh-too-loud-'cause-that'll-annoy-a-man, don't-be-taller-than-a-man-because-that's-emasculating-, don't-answer-like-you-know-the-answer-because-a-man-doesn't-want-a-woman-who-knows-more-than-him KIND OF WOMAN.

No, really, ask my bestie: I became that woman.

Then through the years, a few things happened. A.) It became exhausting not being who I truly was. B.) I came across a Matt Chandler sermon that God used profoundly and C.) God used a normal-every-day phone call with my bestie to change my world. So here we go with the explanations:
         
*A.) Needs no explanation. I was exhausted of faking it all the time.

*B.) Matt Chandler calls out Single women in one of his sermons. He tells [us] that it's better to be single than to dumb ourselves down and marry a stupid man. Because what happens is this: We dumb ourselves down... A (dumb) guy comes along that will finally ask us out...We agree on everything (because that's what we do when we feel we don't deserve to speak up)... and then we wake up 2 years into marriage and think, "My gosh: this is miserable. And I'm stuck with a stupid man."

Golly. That scared me. I DO NOT WANT TO BE HER! (Also note: I know too many "hers".)

And that phrase, "dumb [ourselves] down" struck my innermost being: This was exactly what I had been doing. I had been pretending I didn't know God, His word or my calling as much as I knew I did. Let me tell ya ya'll- I stopped the video, repented & prayed, and replayed those few minutes of the sermon.
         
 *C.) Fast-forwarding the topic during the phone call... My bestie asked me if I had come to truly believe that having confidence is pride and insecurity equals humility. Say what?! But as I truly pondered over that I had to confess (eventually) to myself and out loud that I believed that it was true. That to believe that if I did anything really well or above average or even better than most others, than I believed that was not okay. That it was sin. And that the less I thought of myself... the more I thought of myself not doing things well... then, well, that was the humility that God approved of- and wanted of us.

W R O N G.
So. Freaking.Wrong.

But there's also a D.)

I began to believe that Jesus love(s) women. I began to view Scripture in its historical context more. I began to believe that women can be in leadership.

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It would take way too long for me to go into all the little nuggets of truth from Scripture and conversations and learning and experience for me to give examples of how each of the above shifted me into more of a Woman of Confidence.

But I will just share this.
In Genesis 2, when God speaks of Eve being Adam's helpmate, that word is "Ezer", meaning, help. *shocker* But- here's what's powerful. Ezer is used just 21x's in the Old Testament. 3x's, referring to Eve, but the other 19x's? EACH ONE IS GOD REFERRING TO HIMSELF AS OUR EZER! He is our "ezer and our shield", our "ezer and our sword", "Where does my ezer come from? my ezer comes from the Lord."

I do not believe that this is saying that women are better than men. But rest assured, it most definitely does not mean that we as women are below men.

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So studies like the above changed my life. I was about 33 years old when I began my journey into confidence. I am more free than I have been in my entire life. I am more in love with Jesus than I have been in my entire life.

I am more me than I have ever been in my entire life.

And you know what?
The cage only surrounds me when I fly into it.

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P.S. Proverbs 31: "An excellent wife..." That word "excellent" is from the Hebrew word, "chayil", meaning strength or valor. It is the same word that the angel of the Lord calls Gideon in Judges 6:12, "Mighty man of Valor".

So go ahead and reread Proverbs 31 now knowing the Hebrew word for "excellent". Don't you look at her differently?

<3