I must look ridiculous really. No one has said as much but I do wonder sometimes. Here we are in a developing country, the streets are filthy with litter and buai spat, many get around barefoot and I put on my 2 inch heels to go to work. It seems out of place in this context but there is meaning to my seeming madness! You see, over the past 5 years I have had a couple of intense attacks on my femininity. First I lost my voice to cancer, then only this past year I lost my uterus; another important aspect of my womanhood.
A women’s voice is an expression of her femininity, but I sound like someone who has drunk too much whisky and spent too much time in smoky Jazz bars (that’s putting it nicely!). Just as women who lose a breast face these issues, I too struggle with wanting to be beautiful and feminine but live with disfigurement and in my case a degree of disability. So as I have shared before in my blog about identity, there is actually more to me than my ‘speech impairment’; despite how I look or sound, I am still woman, created in His image and He still looks at me and calls me ‘beautiful’.
Sitting down to breakfast the other morning, Miss Aimee asked her dad to make her some toast. Ray was sitting enjoying his coffee and reading his Bible and simply asked if there was any reason she couldn’t get up and get it herself. She then responded with an attitude of disgust that he wasn’t going to jump up and serve her. It gave me an opportunity to talk about the 2 types of Princesses. The first one sits on her royal bottom and gets everyone to run around for her. The second type is the Warrior Princess. She is not the damsel in distress waiting for someone to come rescue her. She is strong, brave and beautiful fighting to rescue herself and everyone else with her.
That’s the kind of Princess I hope to be. So in a male dominated society where women are only beginning to find their voice, where their feminine strength and beauty is undervalued and shame is such a dominating force, I put on my heels and clipclop up the path to my class of 7 girls and 6 boys at the impressionable ages of 4-6 and I hope with all my heart, to teach them and live out before them what it is to be His image bearer and show them that every little girl can grow up to be His Warrior Princess in high heels.
A women’s voice is an expression of her femininity, but I sound like someone who has drunk too much whisky and spent too much time in smoky Jazz bars (that’s putting it nicely!). Just as women who lose a breast face these issues, I too struggle with wanting to be beautiful and feminine but live with disfigurement and in my case a degree of disability. So as I have shared before in my blog about identity, there is actually more to me than my ‘speech impairment’; despite how I look or sound, I am still woman, created in His image and He still looks at me and calls me ‘beautiful’.
Sitting down to breakfast the other morning, Miss Aimee asked her dad to make her some toast. Ray was sitting enjoying his coffee and reading his Bible and simply asked if there was any reason she couldn’t get up and get it herself. She then responded with an attitude of disgust that he wasn’t going to jump up and serve her. It gave me an opportunity to talk about the 2 types of Princesses. The first one sits on her royal bottom and gets everyone to run around for her. The second type is the Warrior Princess. She is not the damsel in distress waiting for someone to come rescue her. She is strong, brave and beautiful fighting to rescue herself and everyone else with her.
That’s the kind of Princess I hope to be. So in a male dominated society where women are only beginning to find their voice, where their feminine strength and beauty is undervalued and shame is such a dominating force, I put on my heels and clipclop up the path to my class of 7 girls and 6 boys at the impressionable ages of 4-6 and I hope with all my heart, to teach them and live out before them what it is to be His image bearer and show them that every little girl can grow up to be His Warrior Princess in high heels.
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