What Women Need - A Plea to Women Authors and Speakers

Women want a number of things in life. Some of it lies on the surface like the desire to lose a few pounds, have shinier hair or to make everything that we have pinned on our Pinterest board, but it's our needs that run through us in a deeper vain. The trouble is that we often become confused, believing that our wants are actually our needs.

We run ourselves ragged with all of our “doing” and the last thing that we need is to be told that if we would just do more then we wouldn’t feel so out of control. It’s why we buy magazines called Simple and then work furiously to simplify our lives. It’s why we shut down at night and numb ourselves with a box of cookies while we watch America’s Next Top Model. We hide from the reality that we really aren’t good enough and never can be. We encourage ourselves by running to Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest in hopes of being “liked”, only to find that we aren’t living the same fabulous lives as our “friends.”

A question that I often ask myself is, “Why are women flocking to women’s conferences, blogs and books written by other women when so many of them are only giving us more to do?” I believe it is because we desire something more, something deeper than what is fed to us on prime time television but we don’t know where else to look. 

We long to be inspired, motivated and understood. We believe that if we just try harder and hopefully succeed that we will finally feel good about ourselves. We want to have control so we pick up the latest book on being a godlier woman and believe that if it’s written by a Christian then it must be what we need to hear.

The problem is that women are much better at telling other women what they want to hear instead of what they need to here. This is suffocating us!

We don’t need another list to complete or another three step program to a happier life. We don’t need new kids by Friday or new husbands by Wednesday.

What we need is to be told  that Christ has set us free from relying on anything other than Him! He has set us free from the burdens we are carrying. He takes the load off and calls us to rest. To hear that everything you have done over the entire day, whether good or bad, will not gain or lose you any favor with the Father is the stuff that rest is made of.

Rest is not found in doing. It’s not found in learning the secret to a better quiet time. Rest is found in knowing that when we’ve been a hormonal twit all day that we are still loved and accepted far more than we can possibly imagine. Rest is found in knowing that there is nothing left for us to prove because Christ proved it all on the cross.

Please, women speakers and writers, give me what I NEED to hear!

Give me the good story of my Savior who lived every single day of His life in perfect obedience because He knew that I would not. Give me some wind for my sails because most days I’m so tired I just don’t know if I can pack four more lunches, set six more alarms, listen to irrational fears, break up countless fights, receive concerning phone calls, critical emails or not cry when my son calls me stupid.

I need the gospel and I need it bad because it is the only thing that is going to get me home!

Don’t tell me to go out and find my joy, or that happiness and kindness lie within my heart and when I pretend to be thankful I will find it. No, Tell me that my joy comes from being overwhelmed by what God has done for me in sending His son to die for such a wicked sinner; one who thinks she can do it all, one who blows it every single day whether by a blatant outward sin or by an inward Pharisaical smugness.

You will never motivate me to love God by telling me to try harder. I just can't do it anymore. Motivation comes from telling me how much I am loved and adored by the one who created the universe. The one who chose me even though in His omniscience knew every ugly thought and evil action that I would ever come up with.

Please tell me that I don’t have to do it all. Actually, tell me that I don’t have to do anything! Forbid me from believing that I have what it takes to change myself and that only Christ can help me.

Tell me that I don't need to prove my worthiness because the cross has done that for me. 

Dear friends, bring me the good news and tell me I am His beautiful daughter with whom He is well pleased, now, forever and always, even when I don’t feel like it, act like it or even want to be it.

This is what I NEED to hear!

This is what we all NEED to hear!