So here I am finished with my first semester and I'd love to tell you it was all smooth-sailing, but it wasn't. I got stressed out way more often than I should have, I had multiple panic sessions that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and I went several weeks without investing in my relationship with God whatsoever. Despite all of that, the Lord was so good to me and I would consider my the past three months some of the best of my life. I can't tell you that I'm so much more grown up and have life figured out now, but I'd be lying if I said going to college didn't change me for the better. Something I have learned about myself is that being thrown into things that are out of my comfort zone is when I grow and learn the most. Like I said, I spent the first several weeks of college spending little to no time investing in my relationship with God but then after a conversation with one of my work crew friends one night about how wonderful our God is, I realized that needed to change. I started waking up 30-40 minutes early every morning to spend time with God, not because I felt obligated to but because I genuinely missed Him...He's my best friend. In our sweet time together, I felt like I finally let Him start revealing things to me He had been trying to for years.
In the past few months I have realized that I haven't been striving to live as the woman God calls me to be. Sure I do when I'm at a Christian camp or church or having coffee with a Christian friend, but in my everyday actions and thoughts and conversations I have not been striving to honor God in all I do. I conform to be whoever I think the people I am with want me to be and let me tell you, it gets exhausting. When I am in Heaven one day I want to look back on my life with the God who gave it to me and hear Him say "well done, faithful servant" rather than looking at all the moments I missed out on bringing Him glory because I was caught up trying to please people.
Like I said I have no clue what I want to do with my life, but I do know that God will guide me to it when the time is right. No matter what I do, I want to spend everyday becoming more of the woman that He created me to be...not the woman my friends want me to be, or a boy I have a crush on or my parents or anyone else wants me to be. I know that the only way I can become this type of woman is if I really learn what it means to be a woman of God. (I've been on the lookout for a good bible study of woman in the bible so please let me know if you know of one.) With the biblical knowledge I have gained so far as well as simply observing Godly girls and women around me, I have accumulated a collection of characteristics that I believe define a woman of God in today's world that I would like to share with you, partly in hopes that it'll speak to someone else but also because posting these goals on my blog is me saying "Hey world this is the kind of person I want to be, please call me out on it when I go against it" and that is a great form of accountability.
1. She wakes up every morning thinking, "What can I do for God?" rather than "What can God do for me?"
2. She values people for who they are, not how they look or what they have.
3. She makes everyone around her feel important and loved.
4. She recognizes the urgency with which we must share the Gospel with others, but does so in a gentle way.
5. Her hope is in the fact that God will always be with her, not that one day she might find a husband or get a job she has always wanted.
6. The time she spends on her phone or on Netflix does not outweigh the time she spends investing in her relationship with God and serving others.
7. She does not complain when life gets tough, but rather seeks out ways to grow from it.
8. She owns who she is and loves how God made her. She doesn't constantly wish she could look like or be like someone else.
9. She is vulnerable with others about her sin and her struggles. She doesn't put on a facade of perfection.
10. She prays about things more than she talks about them.
11. When she tells someone she will pray for them, she always does.
12. Her joy is steadfast because it comes from the Lord. She is not just temporarily happy when things are going good for her.
13. She works hard at everything she does, working for God and not for man. (Colossians 3:23)
14. She can truly laugh without fear of the future. (Proverbs 31:25) She does not let worry hold her back from living life to the fullest.
15. She doesn't live in her comfort zone. She takes every opportunity she gets to experience something new.
16. She is frugal and doesn't spend money on things she doesn't need. She is generous with her money, knowing that everything she earns belongs to God.
17. She enriches the lives of those around her by speaking positively in everyday conversation and encouraging others with her words.
18. She forgoes her rights to God and says "yes" to whatever He asks of her...even if it isn't how she planned for things to go.
19. She invests in other people and checks up on those she loves frequently. Her conversations aren't surface level small talk, but rather asking people how their life is and if they need anything.
20. She cares more about how kind and Christ-like others view her than she does how pretty and fashionable she appears.
21. She is genuinely happy for other people when life is good for them, not jealous and self-pitying.
22. She is quick to forgive and slow to anger. She shows love to people who have wronged her and never seeks revenge. (1 Corinthians 13:5)
23. She stands up for what she knows is right, no matter how uncomfortable or unpopular it might be.
24. She does not look down on people who don't believe in God or who live a different lifestyle than her, but loves them all the same.
25. She flees from sexual impurity. She dresses modestly to avoid tempting her brothers in Christ and she doesn't kiss or hookup with random boys so she can feel temporary affection. (1 Corinthians 6:18)
There are probably many more things I will continue to discover about what it means to be a woman of God, but this is what I've got so far. I've fallen short of every single one of these things and will time and time again but I know that the more I let God mold me into the woman He created me to be, the more I will be able to do for Him. So instead of spending all my time and energy trying to become the girl who has a perfect life through the eyes of an instagram follower or a girl who is able to find a cute boyfriend or a girl who knows exactly what she wants to do with her life, I will spend the rest of my life trying to be the woman the Good Lord made me to be. Thanks for reading!
Girls from my work crew at our recent reunion! I learn so much from watching how they love God and each other.
I got to spend my New Years worshiping Jesus on the beach. Talk about starting the year off right!
