MEET WESLEIGH
Where are all of the Christian women like me?
Recently I was flipping through the books and blogs of some famous Christian women, ladies whose work and faith I admire and aspire to, and noticed some patterns.
Long, flowy hair. Good and kind husbands. Crazy but wonderful children. Warm houses that are a little messy. Tight circles of friends who show up with snacks.
And I caught myself thinking, with just a twinge of jealousy, I don’t have any of those things.
My hair is usually short and often dyed a weird color. I’m over thirty and not just unmarried but always single. I don’t have kids, or even baby fever, just a cat who gets herself stuck in cabinets. I rent an apartment that’s full of hand-me-down furniture. I haven’t had a best friend since before Y2K. I have a nose piercing and a penchant for dark purple lipstick. Compared to all the women I was seeing, my life and experiences are quite different.
In one of my favorite movies, The Holiday, Kate Winslet’s character Iris laments about single women, saying, But what about the rest of us? What about our stories?
Who is telling our stories? Where are the stories of the quirky women, the ones striking out on their own without spouses or children, the ladies who feel a bit out of place in the church and wonder if they’re truly valued? Where are all of the Christian women like me?
Oh. Oh.
I’m one of the women like me. I can be the one to tell our stories. I can be the one to remind women who feel out of place that yes, actually, you are valued. I can be the friend that brings a glimmer of hope into your life.
Hope has been a recurring theme in my life. Hope, and waiting, and singleness; things I didn’t really want to become so well versed in. If I’m being honest, I’d sure like to stop waiting and quit being single, but that’s not how life has gone. So I’m choosing to live in a place of confident hope instead.
The scripture that I keep coming back to, the one that continually reminds me how I want to live, and how I want to encourage others to live, is Romans 15:13 (NLT):
“I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
I want to be full of joy, and peace, and the power of the Holy Spirit, and be a woman who overflows with confident hope. I want to be, as Ray Bradbury described, a cup constantly and quietly being filled so that I have to tip over and let the beautiful stuff out.
And I want that for you, too. I want you to know that because God is the source of your hope, you can be confident that whatever He brings your way will be good. It may not always be easy, or fun, or what we’d pick for ourselves, but it will most definitely be good.
