Grace and Grit

Mama drops me at the edge of the paved road and I’m about to start into the field with a crossbow over my shoulder when she laughs, “I love how you just changed from a dress into your camouflage.”

It’s like she’s always told me. Being a woman is a balance.

It’s strength plus dignity. Dignity plus strength.

“Strength and dignity are her clothing.” (Proverbs 31:25)

And my mom wears it like royalty.

I’ve watched her wash filth off the floors of the barn, her face speckled with pig poop and her hair in tangles.

I’ve watched her at a party, with make-up, with a pretty gold necklace from my dad, with shoulders back and head high.

Grit.

Glitter.

She’s told me how she clenched her teeth as a little girl, and wished she was a boy. Because being a boy looked better.

But I’ve rarely wished that I was a boy, because I’ve watched her be a woman. And she’s worn it royally.

Like my friend who gets out of bed at 4 A.M. to feed her crying infant.

Or my Grandma coming to the door with her oxygen tank, perfectly dressed, ready to meet the day.

Or the girl by the fireplace in the middle of the wilderness who just carried a canoe on her back for one kilometre.

I sit in a classroom at university and my professor tries to tell me that, to be a successful woman, I have to be like a man. Men are wonderful, but I don’t want to be like them.

I hike behind her on a trail, backpacks filled. Dirt-smudged faces. Greasy hair. She tells me how they have defined what a woman is and is not.

I think it is not so complicated.

“To be a woman is not to be a man.” (Elisabeth Elliot)

Why did God create binaries? I don’t know. He did.

And it was good.

I walk down the dirt road by my house, thinking about it all. The politics, the economics, the connotations to the word “girl”.

None of that matters for a moment.

I whisper thanks to a God who made me a woman. Who gave me this role, in this world, at this time.

I want to wear it His way, the best way.

I want to wear it well.