Our women's Bible study is going
through a video series taught by a popular teacher about being a
woman after God's own heart. It is a good character study and I thought the speaker was doing a pretty good
job until she started to describe what all girls
dream about and then consequently what all boys dream about to
illustrate her point.
Now in all fairness, I have gotten to
an age where the moment I hear the words, “All girls like blah, blah, blah . . .” or “All women want
yada, yada, yada . . .” my eyes start to roll back into my
head. In my opinion, these broad strokes we paint, either over women
or men, do neither of us any justice. I am not like all other women
and I don't appreciate the generalizations. But I digress . . .
Back to my story.
Last night's teacher basically said,
All girls
dream about being princesses.
I'll let that sink in for a moment.
Now answer me this, What does a
princess look like to you?
I think, for us Americans anyway, our
ideas about princesses comes from our own fairy tales and
animated movies. So if this particular teacher is correct, then the
driving force behind all girls' dreams is the desire to look pretty
and long for the day a boy rescues her and makes life worth living.
Because that's what all boys dream about, being the hero.
So all girls are princesses and all
boys are heroes.
Um, really?
Let me be clear. The idea that all
girls are (or want to be) princesses is Disney propaganda, not
Biblical theology.
If we are raising our daughters with
the mistaken notion that they are helpless and hopeless until Prince
Charming enters their life then we are doing them a disservice. We
can and should do better.
I don't believe the Bible teaches us
that all girls are princesses. But I do believe the Bible offers
strong female role models our daughters (and our sons for that
matter) can look up to.
Deborah for one. She was the greatest
judge Israel ever had. There was no hint of unethical or immoral
behavior that sidetracked Deborah's rule. In fact, the Bible says
Israel enjoyed 40 years of peace under her reign (Judges 4:4-5;
5:31b).
Or how about Anna? She was the prophet
who spoke about Jesus to all who longed for his redemptive work (Luke
2:36-38).
Let's not forget Junia. Commended by
Paul as outstanding among the apostles (Romans 16:7).
Or what of Priscilla? A co-worker with the Apostle and a skilled teacher (Romans 16:3; Acts 18:26).
The Bible offers our daughters
something much better than the anemic princess dream of our modern
day fairy tales. Let's give them instead the God inspired dream of
being leaders, judges, prophets, apostles, ministers, and teachers.
Because girls can be heroes too.
