31 Days: Do I Get to Choose?

So here I am, a woman in today‘s world. I see the woman of yesterday, the woman of today, and all the women in between. And I wonder - as a Christian, do I get to choose?

Is there anything morally wrong with wanting to be a woman who builds houses? Or drives a semi? Or runs a business? Not really. There is no commandment from God against those things. Does that give me the freedom, then, to choose what kind of a woman I am?

After all, God did give us the freedom of choice. He didn’t create us as puppets to only do the things He makes us do. Is the fact that I am uncomfortable with the idea of The Woman of Today just the result of generations of training in a conservative Mennonite setting? Is it just because all I have ever known in my world is women who do ‘women jobs’?

Maybe I need to ask myself a couple more questions. First, what lies at the end of this ‘I get to choose’ line of thought? If, as a woman, I may choose to be whoever and whatever, however I want to, where does that track lead? Is it a much bigger step to say I can be whatever gender I want to be; marry whatever gender I want to marry? Second, if I am a Christian, what is my goal in life? To be whoever I want to be or to please the One to whom I belong?

This brings me then to the question: Who did God create me to be? When God created woman, what was His plan for her? How do I please the One to whom I belong?

I like to think it would be so nice if God would just spell out exactly what He created me to be. Don’t you wish you could have been there at creation? Wouldn’t it have been amazing to see the first woman He created? Sure seems like she should have come with a detailed instruction manual; something we could run to to look up all the exact details on how He intended this creature to function! We do have the Bible with little snippets throughout to give us some pointers and guidance, so that’s where I went searching…..