Girly Stuff & Women’s Conferences
I have always been vaguely uncomfortable with me and especially with femininity. I’ve never really been into girly stuff - all the glitter, sparkles, pretty and pink stuff. They’re nice and all, at a distance. And unfortunately, all this stuff is what is associated with girls and women and femininity. It makes me shudder, and I shudder the same way when my son is wobbling his tooth at me or people are talking scabs and picking them!
Recently I was at a Women’s Conference and I “hate” (no that’s too strong a word) “loathe” (again too harsh), “really dislike” that’s it. I really dislike them. Every one I’ve ever been to (I think it’s about 5) has been like, “oh isn’t this lovely, we’re girls and we can talk about this, we’re wonderful women… rahrahrah” with lots of perfume, giggling, girly gifts and treats and…oh, it just makes my skin crawl!
The only “girly” treat I’ve received at these conferences that I’ve actually really appreciated was the chocolate, even though it was heart shaped and wrapped in pink! Don’t get me wrong, the speakers are always good, very good, I just don’t enjoy how it’s all packaged; it’s not me.
One thing that reading ‘Captivating’ has shown me, is that deep down, there are some things associated with being a woman that I do long for - that was a bit of a shock. Most of the issues that have surfaced as a result of this book have been a like that, a bit of a shock. Sometimes they make me gag and cringe, or feel awkward and embarrassed, or horrorfied and mortified, as well as sorry and repentant. But the best thing about this book is that it is helping me get closer to God and me and I love it! One of my regular prayers is “God help me to be all that you have created me to be and help me be the woman you have created me to be.” This is actually quite a dangerous prayer to pray and I am now only truly coming to understand that - it brings a lot of pain and struggle your way, BUT, and this is a big BUT, it brings you closer to God, and although it’s hard, really hard, it is sooooo worth it!
Anyway, I was dreading this conference. Actually, I dread all of them and limit myself to one a year and only if I have to! In our area, we’ve had some sort of women’s event on about every 8 weeks! Yuck!! And nothing at all for the men! I went to this conference the week before I began reading ‘Captivating’, although in the week before the conference I had already decided to read ‘Captivating’ as it was blindingly obvious to me and hubbie that I had issues about being a woman.
I had a really bad day before the evening conference session began - grumpy, ‘the world’s against me’ and ‘I’m so hard done by’ and ‘don’t cross me or your dead’ and ‘life sucks’ attitudes, as well as being depressed, angry and teary. But, well, God’s just amazing and he gave me the strength to come through. So I left for the women’s conference victorious with a better attitude and a lighter heart. More about that another day perhaps. In fact, I think I’ll write the rest of this in another post, it’s getting too long and I still have heaps of other stuff to do!
continued in ‘Embrace Your Femininity’
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://evesdaughter.org/captivating/girly-stuff-womens-conferences/trackback/