Post--But she had wings

Do you feel it? It's change. A shift in the tide. A veering. An adjusting of trajectory. A recalibration. Perhaps even a reckoning. A returning. A restoring. Yes a restoring.

The mistreatment, the assault, the abuse on woman - woman created in the image of God - this darkness that has been excused, allowed, legitimized, accepted, expected, protected, and propagated - seems to be encountering the light.

It seems years and decades and centuries and millennia are culminating in a "for such a time as this" moment. I hope. I hope for my sons and my daughters that their futures hold justice and equality and respect and compassion and truth. And I am hopeful because....I know who I am and I know who I am raising my sons and daughters to be.

I am Jael. This "bad A" woman in Judges 4 and 5 takes a tent peg and a hammer and drives it through the enemy's head. Her cunning and strength and bravery are astounding. Spiritual warfare walks right into our homes sometimes are we are the ones that have to pick up the weapons of our warfare. Offering her expected gift of hospitality, she picked up the tent peg and the hammer - tools of her Destiny and defended a nation.

He asked for water, and she gave him milk;
in a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk.

Her hand reached for the tent peg,
    her right hand for the workman’s hammer.
She struck Sisera, she crushed his head,
    she shattered and pierced his temple.
At her feet he sank,
    he fell; there he lay.
At her feet he sank, he fell;
    where he sank, there he fell—dead.

This woman did what the armies marching could not do.

I am Eowyn. Tolkien's Lady of the Shield. She bravely and fearlessly goes to battle. The Battle of Pelennor. Also called the greatest battle of the age. She faces The witch King - The Ringwraith that cannot be killed by any living man - evil itself . Here she declares...

"But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Ewoyn I am, Eomond's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead. I will smite you, if you touch him".

And smite him she does with her sword. I have hope because of the daughters rising to say, "I am no man. You look upon a woman. You stand between me and my Lord and my family...and I will smite you." Declare whose daughter you are and wield your sword!

I am Rizpah. I weep when I consider this woman in 2 Samuel 21. Her pain. Her anguish. A concubine in Saul's harem, torn by the ravages of war - she tried to raise her sons. An unjust trade off for the sins of Saul, David hands her sons over to Saul's enemies to be executed and their bodies left to rot. In her fierce and desperate grief and love she guards their dead bodies. She spreads out her sackcloth at the hill where their bodies lay - chasing the birds away by day and the animals by night. From the time of harvest until the rains come - she stands guard over her sons bodies until the King hears and properly buries them.

The poem Rizpah by Tennyson portrays a mothers agony....

Flesh of my flesh was gone, but bone of my bone was left—

I stole them all from the lawyers—and you, will you call it a theft?—

My baby, the bones that had suck’d me, the bones that had laughed and had cried—

Theirs? O, no! they are mine—not theirs—they had moved in my side.

As mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives....we agonize over suffering of those we love. We grieve over the children we've aborted; the children bought and sold; the children hopeless and confused. We stand guard over the casualties of addiction and greed. We suffer as our children suffer. By day and by night we relentlessly stand vigil. Justice we cry. Unafraid.

I am Rizpah. I am Ewoyn. I am Jael. You look upon a woman, Yahweh's daughter. And I fight like a girl.