An Advent Table: Male and Female He Created Them

I've been thinking a lot about faith lately, spurred in part from Anna's "coming out" as an Orthodox Jew on her blog Domestic Felicity. When i look back my faith has been a bit of journey exploring in many tangents, and yet looking back what surprises me is this. That despite that wandering there is a surprising constancy there, the search to simply be the woman (not simply the "person" but the deeper self, the woman) that God designed me to be. It was that that drove me really deep down, more than the details of theological doctrine. It was the pull of the heart, the longing buried inside to live a truly feminine life. And more and more, i believe that these deeper desires (distinct from our shallow ones) are given to us by Our Creator as a path to Him. God made me a woman, and thus with a feminine heart, and so within that heart is buried the deep desire to live in a feminine way. My gut keeps telling me that living a feminine life is what, in the deepest way really, is a womans' path to Him.

A favorite qoute comes to mind, from the intro to John Eldredge's Wild at Heart (here):

"Permit me to bypass the entire nature vs. nurture "is gender really built-in?" debate with one simple observation: Men and women are made in the image of God as men or as women. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27)... Gender simply must be at the level of the soul, in the deep and everlasting places within us. God doesn't make generic people; he makes something very distinct-a man or a woman. In other words, there is a masculine heart and a feminine heart, which in their own ways reflect or portray to the world God's heart."

Developing one's feminine heart, that to me speaks louder than any particular words of doctrine. Living in a feminine way is part of living a sacred and ethical life for sure, but i am coming to suspect more and more that it also crosses particulars of faith. What i mean by this is i feel a woman of any faith , just by virtue of her being a woman who is sincerely trying to discern God's will for her life, should be encouraged and supported in living a feminine life-- keeping at home, being a nurturer, being under headship and protected and provided for. It's not that i don't think my faith is important, and frankly its getting harder and harder for me to imagine feeling headship without Christ at the center. But, still... well, for lack of words, i'm going to qoute a commenter, Rachele Ann, from Anna's mentioned post who really spoke to me here (link):

"(Your sharing that you are Jewish) merely confirms my convictions about womanhood. God has made us women and to embody that and be joyous in that role is both before any religion and common to them all."

I don't know, it just really touched a chord somehow. A woman deepening into a feminine life, it is a desire i feel that can lead all women somehow to Our Creator if we let it. Maybe it starts small, but i feel it can open a huge door. I don't think its all that far from realizing a woman is designed to be naturally home based (keeping at home), to realizing a woman is Adam's rib (headship), to realizing that our home is in God.

Anyway, just thoughts...

(Image is of a plate with artwork by Sulamith Wulfing, but i'm not sure of the source)