Then I considered that I'm a lot stronger now than I was back in 20s and early 30s as a competitive runner. How can that be given how much older I am now and how our muscles begin to atrophy over the age of 40?
So what makes a woman stronger?
Physically, my strength gains were the result of suffering, loss, and a lot of hard work. Two major car wrecks during my 20s, which left the EMTs telling me my survival was nothing short of miraculous, did some serious damage to my spine, but I did not realize it at the time. Spinal discs usually have to be at least 90% compressed before pain signals a problem, so I kept running extensively. Then two pregnancies that involved carrying average sized babies on narrow hips and crisis deliveries that nearly took the lives of my children finished off the disc compression. I was left with severe and chronic back pain and scar tissue throughout my body. My running days were over, and my back, knees, and ankles were a mess, never to be the same again.
Both males and females grow stronger the same way. They must put in lots of time, effort, and discipline as they push back against resistance to break down their current muscles and then build them back stronger than before. Part of my rehabilitation involved resistance training. With paint relief as a powerful motivator, I strengthened my body and escaped the chronic pain that had tormented me for the previous seven years. Before long, I could do 20-30 pull-ups without an assist or a break and plyo-, clap-, and one-armed push-ups, none of which I could do before the wrecks during the prime of my youth.
Academically, I faced a different kind of resistance because of my gender. In engineering school, men outnumbered women six to one. I remember struggling in the courses that require exceptional visual-spatial intelligence, partly because I did not play with Legos, building blocks, or other toys that build this type of intelligence as a child as most boys do. I encountered professors and students who stereotyped me as being unsuited for engineering because I was female, but back then, women received no special breaks because of their gender. They had to work as hard (or harder) than all the guys. When I met resistance, I pushed back, and I grew stronger as a result. I graduated at the top of my engineering class. Since I was given no favors by professors or administrators fearful of law suits, I graduated with confidence knowing that I had competed against all the other students on equal grounds.
Professionally, I do not have the stereotypical engineer's personality. I remember lots of surprised comments by male executives who had met me outside of work hours and assumed I worked in sales or communications. I enjoyed the opportunity and challenge of proving myself to them. It was an amusing game for me that also made me stronger.
Emotionally and spiritually, I have grown stronger by taking risks. Giving up a career to stay home with one's children (and in my case I even homeschooled them for a few years) feels like a total loss of identity for many and was a risk I assumed would end my career in a fast paced technical field forever, but when our strength comes from within and is based on who we are instead of what we do, taking those risks only makes us stronger. I am back at work today part-time in a consultant role that provides more flexibility and enjoyment than any high ladder job title I may have attained had I never left. My faith was strengthened with each step I took outside of my comfort zone to follow His leading.
Building spiritual strength also requires us to open ourselves to the truth of our own fallen condition, allowing God to show us the depths of our sin.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,This awareness should then humble us and break us, like the physical breaking down of muscle tissue during resistance training, and bring us to repentance where God can then restore and rebuild us stronger than before. King David expressed his personal experience with this process in Psalm 51.
and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)
1Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
2 Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me.
4 Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
and justified when you judge....
7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity.
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
I reference this spiritual metaphor to emphasize a key point. Our strength does not come from our government, employers, coworkers, professors, spouse, children, family or friends. Our strength comes from the Lord, and the processes used to strengthen us involve resistance, hard work, patience, sometimes pain and suffering, risks, and faith.
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)The strength God gives is placed within us and flows out from the soul. We do not suddenly become stronger because we force others to declare, "You are a woman, so you are strong" and insist that they bow to all our other demands as well.
Gender quotas do not make us stronger. We certainly don't develop professional muscles by loafing within legally imposed gender protections which enable us to do everything wrong or nothing at all on the job or in the classroom without getting fired or expelled. If you are a woman with Latino (or other minority ethnicity) descent who is involved in the occult (or any belief system except Christianity) and identifies as LGBTQ, then there is virtually nothing you could do to get fired, while white males are dismissed without notice simply because their employer found someone else they liked better who might shake things up a bit. We grow stronger and more confident by competing on equal grounds, not by receiving preferential treatment. EEO laws may help get protected classes in the door, but they do not help them grow professionally, for there is little to no incentive to work, much less improve
We don't become stronger by demanding government funded birth control. We become stronger by taking personal responsibility for our own bodies and finding the courage and self-control to say no to activities that will naturally result in unwanted pregnancy or by managing birth control ourselves, whether we use free methods like natural family planning or purchase birth control products at a price less than the cost of each sign those women carried at the Inauguration 2017 women's march.
Should a woman still end of up in crisis pregnancy situation, then she will become stronger by accepting and even celebrating that life while resisting the public pressure and demeaning lies (such as "you are too weak or poor to care for baby, and you have no other options") of the abortion clinic workers and carrying that child to term. I know hundreds of women who have made that choice to birth their children in less than ideal conditions (some of whom were rape victims) and against the pressure of their family and loved ones, yet not one regrets her decision to bring that child into the world alive. They are among the strongest women I know.
We become stronger each time we stand up for truth and righteousness in a culture that despises both and persecutes all who disagree with the new social order.
We grow stronger each time we risk hearing our children tell us they hate us to discipline them out of pure love and with eyes fixed on their long term gain.
We are strengthened each time we refrain from saying what we feel like saying out of a desire to build others up instead of tearing them down.
We are strengthened with each battle we fight - whether against cancer or other illness, financial hardship, natural disaster, injustice, betrayal by those closest to us, or death of our dearest loved ones.
We are strengthened with each risk taken to benefit another, each sacrifice made to serve our families, each word of ridicule cast upon us because we did not cave to peer pressure, and each humble prayer offered on our knees in confession, thanksgiving, supplication, and authentic praise.
We are strong because we have faced resistance and overcome, not because we manipulated all of society into removing each and every obstacle in our path.
We are strong because He who is in us is greater than anyone who is in the world, and by Him, we have and will continue to overcome. (1 John 4:4)
