John 8:36   “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”

Helen Reddy sang,  ‘I Am Woman” on the TV show ‘The Midnight Special’ in the seventies.  (at least I think it was the seventies!)  The only thing that I recall hearing over and over in my mind was, “I am woman hear me roar in numbers to big to ignore!” It was a great time of change in America, and we as a nation of women started wanting to become just like men.  We started becoming what I like to call a WO-MAN.  We wanted it all just like men.  The only problem with the way things started to turn was that when push came to shove, at the end of the day, we were still women.  We were not men. 

Now, mind you, these are on the whole the same women who still watched the Brady Bunch.  So there were two different views going on.  Home fronts started falling apart, the corporate ladder was ours to climb, and we got busy chasing after that God Almighty dollar. We told our kids we were doing it all for them as they became ‘latch key children’.  Remember the commercial where the woman dressed in a nice suit sang, “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never, ever let you forget you’re a man, cause I’m a woman W-O-M-A-N.  I’ll say it again!”  Society was making a change on TV and we were following.  We were starting to let everybody hear us roar!   We still do.  Nothing quite like being around a big, loud-mouthed woman, is there?

I should know….I was one.

This is the 21st century and due to society and all of the media hype we hear day in and day out, week after week and year after year, it has become acceptable in this generation of people to try and be like “they” want us to be.  Who are those people anyway?  It seems to be ok to say whatever you want, get in someone’s face and let the chips fall where they may, as long as I have said my peace and let’s not forget as long as I get in the last word and of course the winner of it all….as long as I am right.  Always right. 

We strive against men for everything from equal pay to equal everything.  We walk it, talk it, act like it and then wonder why in the world we have problems with relationships.  Well, I don’t know about you but the days of big loud-mouthed women need to be over……roaring  is not from Heaven. 

Matthew 7:7  Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.


When I was 39 years old, this big, loud mouthed WO-MAN looked straight up to Heaven and said, “If you’re really real, you are going to have to help me cause I don’t want to live down here like this anymore.”  That’s all it took.  It was simple yet heartfelt.  I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and I wanted, I needed something or I was going to be defeated for the rest of my natural born days and as for eternity…..what was that?

I have been around men and women from all walks of life and backgrounds and I don’t care how much money you make or what you have, if your home life is in disarray, if your children are a mess and last but certainly not least, if your heart isn’t happy then it is time to be truly set free.  You don’t have to settle for second best in this life….there is more. 

You might be saying right now, “Oh no, she is not going to go into that submission stuff with me is she?” Be quiet as a mouse?  Be seen and not heard?  Then you might say,  “I’m not going to be a doormat for anybody to ------on!”  Well, you don’t have to be, but if you are a woman living in this day and time, there is more to know than maybe you have even been taught.  The biggest problem we all face today are ourselves.  WE have been our own worst enemies…and it is one of Satan’s biggest tactics…we are bound within ourselves and don’t even know it because most of us are too hardheaded to believe it.     

We have let society tells us what to think, what to do, what to wear and how to behave.  Who set up those rules I ask you?   Yes, the days of Donna Reed and the Brady Bunch are over but were they really ever here anyway? 

Some women have had it harder than others, to be certain.  The deep hurt causes them to be bitter and their hearts become hard as time goes on.  The walls they build around themselves are so thick that it would take a sandblaster to penetrate it.  They still function with moments of happiness but not ever knowing the full meaning of joy.  They lash out at everyone and everything because of their own hurt and pain.  Others are products of their environments and truly have heartbreaking situations.  I had a woman tell me her life story and before she was finished, I had to tell her to please stop.  I couldn’t take anymore. My heart felt as though it was actually bleeding for her.  Believe me, no matter what you have faced and what caused you to be the way you are today, it is time for you to STOP and take responsibility for yourself and your life.  There is nothing that God cannot turn around.
 
We get in this hurry, hurry of life and wish for a break.  When we get it we can’t really seem to relax because something still isn’t right….we still aren’t really happy, but we just figure that’s life and everybody is like that.  But, I am here to tell you today that everybody isn’t like that, and it doesn’t have to be like that.  But it will be up to you to go get it. 

I had a vision in my head one time of a woman walking back and forth on a stage.  There were iron bars all around her.  Behind those bars, she could walk, work, watch TV, talk on the phone, go in the side room to the bathroom, even lay on the couch and go to sleep.  Friends could come up and talk with her but not really touch her. She was living in a prison within herself and she didn’t even know it…..until one day when she got set free and the bars were finally raised.  You can be in a prison within yourself and not even know it. 

STOP.  Start To Pray.  No matter who you are, no matter what your background is or isn’t, no matter who you think you are, Stop.  Get your life in order.  You have one life to live while you are here.  There are no seconds.  This is it.  If you feel a tugging in your heart about anything I have said, I want you to know there is more.  It’s the more of God I have been called to tell you about.  It doesn’t matter what you have done to yourself or to anybody else…in God’s eyes, we are all His children.     


But it is going to cost you some of the time “you don’t have” to get what I am talking about.   I have seen with my own two eyes God restore loveless (in every capacity) marriages, where the wives were ready to just throw in the towel, set people free from addictions, turn bitter hearts into peace and joy and restore children from the grasp of the devil, break generational curses (do you even know that those exist?)  etc. etc. It is a miracle: it is supernatural,  but these are some of the things that God promises to us as HIS children, whether we are young or old. 

Don’t let anybody tell you this God stuff is a bunch of crap.  He is real and He wants to truly come into your heart and set you free from the prison inside of you.  But you will be the one that has to take the first step.  He is not going to make you.  It is never too late…never.  If you are miserable inside of yourself and you wear a 24 hour smile that isn’t real, then you are the one God wants.  

Do you breathe freely?  Do you really enjoy your life?  Do you have peace in your heart?  Are you getting enough attention from your husband?  Does he tell you he loves you all the time?  Are your children OK?  Does your mind reel on and on never seeming to shut off?  Are you tired of pretending that things are all right when they really aren’t?  Are you angry all the time or do you have outbursts of rage?  Exactly what is it that is bothering you today? 

It is time for a change.  It is time for you to turn your heart to the only one who can help you.  Stop roaring at everybody else and let God restore you.  He is the only one who can change that ROAR into a MEOW….

  
Molly