Strong, Capable Women

    Strong and Capable.  Words I struggle with feeling about myself.
   In high school I decided I didn't need to finish learning a foreign language or pass geometry.  I said it was because my dreams mostly involved getting married and having kids so I didn't need college.  I'm not saying that staying at home isn't the most rewarding, challenging, meaningful job I've ever had. Or that others can't take different paths into adulthood than a typical University experience.  But, I thought getting married and having kids was my ticket out of doing things that were too hard for me.  Things that were for other smarter kinds of people.
   I started school halfheartedly at a community college. Sometime after transferring from there to ASU, in the middle of college, I realized I should probably have a back-up plan in case the whole getting married and having kids plan didn't pan out.  And so I rocked the rest of my education.  I learned how to be a more critical consumer of information, how to find answers I could trust and how to set goals and meet them when I only had myself pushing me.  I graduated well with my bachelor of arts in Psychology and better grades than I'd had since elementary school.
    But, in the past 12 years I've forgotten.  I've looked at other women's accomplishments and thought "I could never..."
   Recently, a women I seek out advice from encouraged me to rehearse telling myself "I am capable."
   I thought that sounded kind of dumb.  She didn't understand why that sounded dumb so I decided I'd better try it.  So she wouldn't be mad at me.  That's another problem for another blog though.
  That very next week I sat listening to a parenting educator in my MOPS group.  Inspired either by her greatness or the thick, heavy mug of coffee I sipped as I listened, I had the thought, "Maybe this is what I could do once my boys are both in school!  Wouldn't this be a wonderful job?!"
   And then the next morning I woke up to the lack of coffee telling me, "You aren't qualified to teach something like that!  You've got so much to learn yourself!" and "But that lady is a great speaker.  She's so put together and polished."
   This time I talked back.  I said, "I may not be ready to do any of that today but I am perfectly capable of learning just as much as anyone."
   Something changed.  I recognized the difference between not having practiced or learned a skill yet and being incapable.  I had spent so much of my life mistaking the two.
    I continued hearing God speak to me about being strong and capable as I worked on my study of "The Story" and then showed up for dinner and discussion one night with the group of ladies I'm on this reading journey with.  I looked around at the tables filling my friend Linda's home at this group of some of the strongest and most capable women I've met.  Women who have raised children all alone, and women who have had the courage to raise someone else's children as their own.  Ladies who lead ministries at our church or who feed the homeless of Phoenix with their own hands and own paychecks even at the risk of their lives at times.  Women who speak words of wisdom and knowledge of the scripture.
   But, where I found the loudest words of feminine strength and ability surprisingly came straight from the Bible stories themselves.  We talked of Deborah the judge and prophet.  I've pointed out God's message of equality by the way he lets women hang around in his circle.  But a prophet and judge!?  How had I missed this one?  This story of a woman holding the most respected position of her time?
   We also read of Rahab and also Ruth, both leaving their people and fearlessly following a God once foreign to them.  They made up their minds with confidence and they protected and cared for those they loved.
    Strong and capable shouldn't be the exception, left for some stand-out, eccentric Disney characters like fiery Irish Meridah.  God made US in His image too and the scripture is full of women who changed history.
    Being Moses' mom has put me in a position of needing to act strong and capable even when I don't feel like it.  I've often said that God must have gotten the wrong girl.  This Mama-bear thing just isn't my jam.  But, as I've read through the chapters about Moses (the old timey one not the one watching Nascar in my living room right now) in "The Story" these past few weeks one passage stood out to me as Moses insisted he could not go before Pharaoh because he was "slow of speech" and yet God tells him it doesn't matter.  He would speak through him.  Just like Moses, I may not have the talents or skills right at this very moment but I am CAPABLE through Christ who gives me strength.
   I belong to a few clubs no one wants to be a part of. Clubs of allergy and cancer moms. Initiation into these clubs is the worst but the community is like none you could ever understand unless you've been there.  They're clubs full of strong and capable mama-bears.  They get bans on underage tanning passed.  They get canopies built over play grounds.  Together they tell everyone, EVERYONE who will listen that kids can get melanoma and that it's a deadly, destructive beast of a disease.  Individually and as a massive army they tell the cashier at Target, the facilitator of a childhood cancer page that didn't know pediatric melanoma was a thing, and their congressmen on Capitol Hill.
   I'm joining some of these lovely ladies and their families next week, sharing our stories with members of congress.  Sometimes I wonder, why did God choose us to represent this, to experience and use this?  But, any of us are capable because the same Holy Spirit present in the Bible can live inside of us and speak through and use us.  Please pray for us and all of the melanoma families who are uniting this next weekend and that our voices will be heard and that we will feel like enough.