All of the Girls

Some time last August, I realized that every book I’d read that summer featured a mother-daughter relationship. The relationships and circumstances were different in each, some fraught and some sweet. But when I realized that pattern, I started reflecting on the female relationships in my life. 

I have a Mary-Poppins-perfect mother, three incredible sisters, two excellent grandmothers, five lovely aunts, a dozen beautiful girl-cousins, not to mention the countless women who through tears and time together have become sisters and aunts and grandmothers to me in their own way.  

These women have taught me, nurtured me, changed me. They have brought me their burdens and I have brought them mine. They have shared their dreams and given me a place to share my own. They have challenged me and encouraged me. They have held space for my thoughts and emotions and vulnerably trusted me with their own. They have shown me more of the joy and empathy and beauty of God than anyone might expect this side of heaven. I see myself in them. And in them I see parts of humanity that I wish to embody.  

Their love and friendship have held me as the very hands and heart of God.  

As a result of their immeasurable contributions in my life and faith, I have become obsessed with how these precious women are uplifted, valued, understood, and cared for by God. This obsession going hand in hand with fighting the ways they are called or treated as anything less than the “Imago Dei”*, and “Ezer”** they are.

In my writing, my relationships, my life, my heart burns for the women in my life to know how much the heart of God is FOR them. How much my own heart is FOR them.

I see the way they reflect the image of God and I am amazed. 

I see how they love fiercely and sacrificially. 

I see how their passion betters the world and the lives around them. 

I see their kindness and their determination. 

I see their humility and their unswerving conviction of the truth. 

I see their laughter and capacity for beauty. 

I see how they start things and grow things. 

All these leave me more in awe of God than I ever could be without these women. They help me see what God is like and who God made me to be. They give me a burning desire for the world to experience the fullness of God in them.  They make me want to destroy with a spiritual sledgehammer every lie, barrier, and weapon that comes against them. And if I spend the rest of my life figuring out how to do that, i believe it will be well worth it.   

*”Imago Dei” - The Image of God

**“Ezer - The word used in Genesis to describe woman, meaning ‘To rescue, to save, and to be strong’