Simple Home Living: the centered woman

Being a pastor’s wife and mentor, I often have an up close view of a woman’s feminine soul. And, from my view, there are generally two kinds of women - the centered one and the un-centered one.

Because I want all women to live on purpose, I’m going to make a few of these upcoming Wednesdays my The Centered Woman Day.

To understand what I’m meaning by centered we need to take a look at the definition of the core of that word which is CENTER.

Center means: hub, heart, core, foundation, mainstay, basis. As you and I look at those words, they speak of something sure, solid, and anchored.

I want to be a centered woman who lives life with purpose. In this mini-series on a few of the next Wednesdays, we’ll look at the different aspects of the un-centered and the centered woman. Mixed in here, I'll add some steps for any un-centered women to take to become centered - if you’re not totally her.

THE UN-CENTERED WOMAN
Who is the un-centered woman? The un-centered woman is the one who tends to be driven by an internal mass of fear and assumptions. Her fear (founded or not) is often her mode of operandi in life.

She has fear of intimacy, fear of being known by others, fear of telling the truth about her self and fear of being honest with her failures.

These kinds of fears that frame her life will tend to cause her to sabotage her relationships because she’s afraid that they’ll “find her out” and not accept her.

The un-centered woman is very shame-based and lives out of others definitions of who they says she is – rather than WHO God says.

Because the un-centered woman mistrusts most people – especially men – she’ll tend to blame others for her mistakes. It’s difficult for to “own up” and therefore she often resorts to gossip to cover and blame. God, in His mercy to mature us, won’t let her off the hook. In time she will have to face the gossip and the blaming others that she uses to hide her own shame. And, hopefully, those who she’s blamed and gossiped about are mature enough to walk with her through the right biblical process of restoration and forgiveness.

So many women live life with a skewed idea of WHAT they are here for and how to do THIS life in regards to the NEXT one. They lack true biblical purpose and often have a faulty theological foundation of WHO God is and WHO they are in light of Him. Because of this faulty thinking – (from incorrect teaching, lack of discipleship and modeling) they make God up in their own image.

What’s so sad for me, is that they do TRY to live life and do life God’s way, but it just doesn’t work with a faulty foundation – because whenever shame rises up and fear takes over – their feet slip through the cracks of the faulty foundation. They don’t trust God (because they don’t know Him as Father God) because He didn’t protect them when they needed protection and He let all these bad things happen to them.

I’ve seen precious un-centered women also create all sorts of spins. Gosh, when your theology of God is skewed, what else do you do? Spins will definitely lock you into the patterns of your past. Spins are based on wrong thinking which is leading "feelings" and not based in truth - but in fear.

I’ve labeled these spins as: the blame spin, the “it’s not my fault” spin, the self-pity spin and the “I NEED it (this way) if I’m going to survive spin.” The un-centered woman lives with some judgments (that other people will let her down) and unbroken vows.

Here's Part 2