Finding Your Identity- In Marriage and Motherhood
Today I would like to let some other voices speak on this issue for me. I have struggled at many periods of my marriage with my role as a wife, and I am yet to be a mother. Society pulls for women to be independent and strong, while the Bible clearly guides us to healthy submission in our marriages and godly counsel in parenting. Through prayer and the leading of God through His word and Spirit, I am beginning to see not only see my identity as a woman in marriage, but am seeing it in a beautiful light. I continue to pray for the same leading as a soon-to-be mother.
The following excerpts are from author and speaker Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Pastor John Piper, who spoke at a convention titled, "Voices of the True Woman Movement, a Call to the Counter Revolution" in 2008. I pray that their words would reach into your heart and guide you to a fuller understanding of your identity in marriage and motherhood.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss
"One of the greatest challenges in our day is the vast number of voices vying for our attention. The roar of our culture and those who speak for it is inescapable and deafening. Voices speak to us persistently, incessantly--from the big screen, our flat screen TV's, our laptop screens, and our smartphone screens. Add to that the surround-sound voices of friends, family members, and acquaintances, along with the nagging voices of our past, our failures, and our fears, and the never-ending chatter of our own thoughts. So much is determined by which voices we hear and heed: our sense of who we are and why we are here; the way we relate to others; the choices we make; the way we spend our moments and years; our personal, emotional, and spiritual well-being; and yes, the ultimate outcome of our lives."
"I don't think it would be overstating the case to say that most if not all of the pain, dysfunction, and distress we experience in this broken world comes as a result of listening to voices that counter rather than affirm the voice of God."
"We live in a self-centered world, but a true woman of God lives a God-centered life. She lives for His glory and pleasure, not her own...because it is not about us. It is all, all, all, about Him. A God-centered woman embraces the supreme purpose for which she was created. She lives to reflect the beauty and wonder of His ways and to join every created thing in heaven and earth in glorifying and worshiping Him eternally. This is her reason for living. This is what gets her up in the morning and keeps her going through the day. Every day and every moment of every day, she seeks to live with His purposes in view."
"A true woman is more than a good wife and mother, a loyal friend and daughter. More than anything else, she is enthralled with the Lord Jesus Christ--the Pearl of great price, the supreme Treasure of life. He is the center of her universe and her life revolves around Him."
John Piper
"From the beginning, manhood and womanhood were designed to display the glory of Christ in His relationship to the church, His bride. In other words, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood is this: It is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of His Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood."
"First, a word to the married. Paul says in Ephesians 5:22-24, 'Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.' The point here is that marriage is meant to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and His church. And the way it does this is by men being men and women being women in marriage. These are no more interchangeable than Christ is interchangeable with the church. Men take their cues from Christ as the head, and women take their cues from what the church is called to be in her allegiance to Christ. This is described by Paul in terms of headship and submission. Here are my definitions of headship and submission based on this text:
Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.
The point here is not to go into detail about how this gets worked out from marriage to marriage. The point is that these two, headship and submission, are different. They correspond to true manhood and true womanhood, which are different. And these differences are absolutely essential by God's design, so that marriage will display, as in a mirror dimly, something of the glory of the sacrificial love of Christ for His bride and the lavish reverence and admiration of the bride for her husband. I know this leaves a hundred questions unanswered--about unbelieving husbands, and believing husbands who don't take spiritual leadership, and wives who resist their husbands' leadership, and those who receive it but don't affirm it. But if you--you married women--embrace the truth that your womanhood, true womanhood, is uniquely and indispensably created by God to display the glory of His Son in the way you relate to your husband, you will have a calling of infinite significance."
Nancy Leigh DeMoss
"I believe now is the time for us to seek God for a movement of reformation and revival among Christian women--a Word-driven, Christ-exalting, counter-cultural revolution that will take back the ground that has been given over to the world's way of thinking for so many years."
"Married women--this is a call to be faithful in a world of broken promises. It means loving your husband, praying for him, building a marriage that glorifies God. It means being faithful in the good times as well as the bad, saying 'yes' to your high and holy calling of being a helper to your husband, reverencing him as Scripture exhorts, submitting to his as a picture of your submission to Christ Himself. It means giving yourself wholeheartedly to your man, and saying no to emotional or physical intimacy with any other man. If you've been going with the flow, being drawn away with your emotions, doing what comes naturally, God is calling you to break off these wrong attachments, and to say yes to a life of faithfulness, counter-cultural as that may be.
Mothers--going against the flow for you means embracing the calling of being a giver and nurturer of life. Don't let the world dictate how many of how few children you should have. Let God give you a vision for the impact your children and grandchildren could make for His Kingdom throughout the generations to come. It means a willingness to do battle for the souls of your children, refusing to concede them to the clutches of the Enemy, pleading with God to capture the hearts of the next generation for His Kingdom purposes."
You can purchase a copy of the book, "Voices of the True Woman Movement, A Call to the Counter-Revolution" to read these excerpts and many others from John Piper, Mary Kassian, Joni Eareckson Tada, Janet Parshall, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Karen Loritts, and Fern Nichols.
The following excerpts are from author and speaker Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Pastor John Piper, who spoke at a convention titled, "Voices of the True Woman Movement, a Call to the Counter Revolution" in 2008. I pray that their words would reach into your heart and guide you to a fuller understanding of your identity in marriage and motherhood.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss
"One of the greatest challenges in our day is the vast number of voices vying for our attention. The roar of our culture and those who speak for it is inescapable and deafening. Voices speak to us persistently, incessantly--from the big screen, our flat screen TV's, our laptop screens, and our smartphone screens. Add to that the surround-sound voices of friends, family members, and acquaintances, along with the nagging voices of our past, our failures, and our fears, and the never-ending chatter of our own thoughts. So much is determined by which voices we hear and heed: our sense of who we are and why we are here; the way we relate to others; the choices we make; the way we spend our moments and years; our personal, emotional, and spiritual well-being; and yes, the ultimate outcome of our lives."
"I don't think it would be overstating the case to say that most if not all of the pain, dysfunction, and distress we experience in this broken world comes as a result of listening to voices that counter rather than affirm the voice of God."
"We live in a self-centered world, but a true woman of God lives a God-centered life. She lives for His glory and pleasure, not her own...because it is not about us. It is all, all, all, about Him. A God-centered woman embraces the supreme purpose for which she was created. She lives to reflect the beauty and wonder of His ways and to join every created thing in heaven and earth in glorifying and worshiping Him eternally. This is her reason for living. This is what gets her up in the morning and keeps her going through the day. Every day and every moment of every day, she seeks to live with His purposes in view."
"A true woman is more than a good wife and mother, a loyal friend and daughter. More than anything else, she is enthralled with the Lord Jesus Christ--the Pearl of great price, the supreme Treasure of life. He is the center of her universe and her life revolves around Him."
John Piper
"From the beginning, manhood and womanhood were designed to display the glory of Christ in His relationship to the church, His bride. In other words, the ultimate meaning of true womanhood is this: It is a distinctive calling of God to display the glory of His Son in ways that would not be displayed if there were no womanhood."
"First, a word to the married. Paul says in Ephesians 5:22-24, 'Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.' The point here is that marriage is meant to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and His church. And the way it does this is by men being men and women being women in marriage. These are no more interchangeable than Christ is interchangeable with the church. Men take their cues from Christ as the head, and women take their cues from what the church is called to be in her allegiance to Christ. This is described by Paul in terms of headship and submission. Here are my definitions of headship and submission based on this text:
Headship is the divine calling of a husband to take primary responsibility for Christ-like, servant leadership, protection, and provision in the home.
Submission is the divine calling of a wife to honor and affirm her husband's leadership and help carry it through according to her gifts.
The point here is not to go into detail about how this gets worked out from marriage to marriage. The point is that these two, headship and submission, are different. They correspond to true manhood and true womanhood, which are different. And these differences are absolutely essential by God's design, so that marriage will display, as in a mirror dimly, something of the glory of the sacrificial love of Christ for His bride and the lavish reverence and admiration of the bride for her husband. I know this leaves a hundred questions unanswered--about unbelieving husbands, and believing husbands who don't take spiritual leadership, and wives who resist their husbands' leadership, and those who receive it but don't affirm it. But if you--you married women--embrace the truth that your womanhood, true womanhood, is uniquely and indispensably created by God to display the glory of His Son in the way you relate to your husband, you will have a calling of infinite significance."
Nancy Leigh DeMoss
"I believe now is the time for us to seek God for a movement of reformation and revival among Christian women--a Word-driven, Christ-exalting, counter-cultural revolution that will take back the ground that has been given over to the world's way of thinking for so many years."
"Married women--this is a call to be faithful in a world of broken promises. It means loving your husband, praying for him, building a marriage that glorifies God. It means being faithful in the good times as well as the bad, saying 'yes' to your high and holy calling of being a helper to your husband, reverencing him as Scripture exhorts, submitting to his as a picture of your submission to Christ Himself. It means giving yourself wholeheartedly to your man, and saying no to emotional or physical intimacy with any other man. If you've been going with the flow, being drawn away with your emotions, doing what comes naturally, God is calling you to break off these wrong attachments, and to say yes to a life of faithfulness, counter-cultural as that may be.
Mothers--going against the flow for you means embracing the calling of being a giver and nurturer of life. Don't let the world dictate how many of how few children you should have. Let God give you a vision for the impact your children and grandchildren could make for His Kingdom throughout the generations to come. It means a willingness to do battle for the souls of your children, refusing to concede them to the clutches of the Enemy, pleading with God to capture the hearts of the next generation for His Kingdom purposes."
You can purchase a copy of the book, "Voices of the True Woman Movement, A Call to the Counter-Revolution" to read these excerpts and many others from John Piper, Mary Kassian, Joni Eareckson Tada, Janet Parshall, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Karen Loritts, and Fern Nichols.
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