Did you have a parent that woke you up in the mornings for school? My Mama would come in quietly and gently pat me and tell me it was time to get up. Dale's mother would sling open the door, turn the light on, and throw a wet washcloth on their faces if they wouldn't get up!!! That right there is the difference between boys and girls!!!
If there is anything that I believe our nation has lost, especially in women, is our dignity. We have watered down what it really means to even be a woman, lowering ourselves to primping, posing, and prostituting our outward appearance and bodies, when that is the least of who God says we are. We don't even get to take that part of us with us when we die. Yet countless amounts of money and time is spent on what is least in the Kingdom.
Dignity means "to raise up; a lifting up of one's countenance; an elevation of excellence; personal pride about one's self."
Every day, without fail, I was raised to make up my bed. And every Saturday, without fail, I was made to strip my bed and change the sheets for the next week. Now, to you, that may mean nothing. But to me, it started me on a path to self-respect, excellence, and personal pride. So, how do we as women get our dignity back?
The Bible tells us about three women. We don't know their names, but we sure know about their miraculous encounter with Jesus! I wonder if these women represent us somehow? I wonder if we could see ourselves a little in these ladies.
Mark 5:21-43 tells us about two of the women. I want to share about the daughter of Jarius, a ruler in the synagogue. His daughter was very sick and he was frantically coming to Jesus to beg for Him to come and heal her. She actually dies, but Jesus goes to Jarius' home and heals his daughter saying, "She is not dead, but asleep", then, "Little Girl, get up!" He woke her up just like our parents woke us up for school! Jesus told Jarius to not be afraid but rather believe, and as soon as Jesus touched the little girl, she was immediately brought back to life!
I was stuck on the word "asleep" and it drew me in thought to the word "dormant". Dormancy is another word for asleep. It means "inactive; not growing due to adverse conditions; temporarily inactive." Some of you have thought your life was over. You have a dead marriage, dead finances, dead relationship with your children, dead job, and so much more. And yet, Jesus would say that it is in dead, it's just asleep....it's just dormant. Death is terminating. Sleeping is temporary.
What you see as Terminating,
God sees as Temporary.
Dormancy is often used to describe a seed. The seed gets dormant when the seed coat, when buried in the ground, becomes hardened, too tough to penetrate. Have you been so hurt that you have put a hard barrier around your heart so that nothing can penetrate it?
So, I had to know how the seed coat can be softened again. How can we awaken? How can we slough off the hardened heart and start living again?
A dormant seed becomes permeable over time through repeated heating and cooling of the soil around it. SOMETHING HAS TO CHANGE IN THE ENVIRONMENT!
Here are three things I would suggest to change your environment:
1) Presence: God's loving presence must be acknowledged and enjoyed throughout your day. LOVE!
2) Persuasion: You must develop an unwavering trust stemming from an unlovable faith that God is who He says He is and can do what He says He can do! FAITH!
3) Prospect: You must be hopeful...an anticipatory outlook on your future! HOPE!
"And now abides faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13
I believe that when we begin to put these three things into place, the atmosphere around us will change and we will begin to see the hardness of our hearts become soft again. We will begin to see ourselves the way God sees us, and we will get our dignity back.