Last week, Kim Kardashian made the news…again.

I confess that I usually just ignore any and all news surrounding the Kardashian family.

In fact, I had to Google their name to make sure I spelled it correctly.  Apparently, she and another woman (who I didn’t bother to Google) decided they would post pictures of themselves on Instagram posing almost nude and giving us all the bird.

What power and strength they claim to possess with their “in-your-face-we-have-nothing-to-wear” attitude.

I still can’t quite wrap my head around their popularity.  Ironic, that in a world that points the finger at the wealthy and the unfairness of it all, how quickly we succumb to its power with our captivated time and attention.

I will say that in the midst of it all, though, my middle-age heart suddenly felt very sorry for Kim Kardashian and her friend.

And I feel compelled as a mother to respond.

I believe when it comes to womanhood, they’ve missed the forest through the trees.  For if they look closely into the forest, they will see the future and what the future holds for them will look very much like it does for all of us.

One day the body will begin to change. Gravity will take hold and those things that were high and lifted up as the trophy of womanhood will sadly begin dropping to the ground.

Literally.

That hair that once seemed so full and beautiful will begin to change and become coarse and brittle from years of processing, pulling, drying, and arranging at the hands of the experts.

The face will begin to crinkle and wrinkle and those once mocking faces flipping us all the bird will suddenly turn and mock itself.   They can prolong it with surgery and tucks but eventually it will betray them as age must come to all.

What shortened lives we live, if the wonder of womanhood is found only in body and beauty.

There is an old saying:  “What comes around, goes around.”  In the Christian world, we call it the law of reaping and sowing.   In other words, those things that you mock usually end up mocking you.

For years the feminist movement railed against men because they objectified women and saw them as only sexual creatures instead of strong, intelligent, beautiful contributors to society, work, and home.

Now we live in a culture where women objectify themselves and I wonder at the irony of it all.

As I lead my daughters and spiritual daughters daily in the graces of what it means to be a woman, I am saddened that these are the role models speaking to the generations of girls out there looking for someone to tell them why being a woman is so great.

So allow me in a few short lines to tell you why I think being a woman is the most wonderful thing in the world.   I wouldn’t trade what life has taught me for the youngest, sexiest body that Kim Kardashian has to offer.

What makes you wonderful is your design.  There was in the mind of an Intelligent Artist a desire to show off the beauty and wonder in you, His creation.

Jeremiah 1:5  says:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…”

And you, my beautiful friend, were fashioned accordingly with love and intent.  You were no mistake.  You were made to bring help, influence, and insight to this world with your heart, strength, and discernment.  You were not an afterthought meant only to be used by men to satisfy their primal breeding cravings.

That is what Kim is trying to sell you. If the essence of womanhood is only that she controls men with her body, I suppose that flashing your nude body online would feel like the pinnacle of power.

But it’s not.

What makes you wonderful is your purpose.  You are unique and bring to the world a power of femininity that can never be replaced by masculinity.  In fact, masculinity needs your femininity to stay on course.

One of the most beautiful displays of this femininity can be found in the delivery room as you see the strength and power of its tenacity at work in the feminine heart bringing forth not just life-but love itself.

A reflection of her Artist.

No one who has watched a woman bring life would dare to call her weak.   But there is a power of perseverance at work that continues long after that physical life is birthed.

For femininity does more than bear physical life, they call forth life and destiny from their dying, decaying world.   Women were purposed to call the generations they birthed to fight for those things and those people they love.

But instead, a woman’s life-giving power is now ridiculed as a source of shame and the hand that rocks the cradle is suddenly mocked by the visionless children she’s rocked. Our society worships at the altar of youth, sex, and self with an ugly call to fill each moment with a temporary-in-your-face arrogance of living to please self.

And we wonder why the foundation is crumbling beneath us.

What makes you wonderful is your value.  You were made in the image of your Artist to reflect the power of a Trinitarian love, relationship, and purposeful unity.  You were redeemed with the sacrificial blood of the One who left heaven and moved earth so you would never have to be devalued again by the ugliness or shame of a broken, sinful past.

Within you, beautiful woman, is the power of always seeing this God-love, these relationships, and your Christ-valued life as something sacred, something higher than all of us, and something to be valued in each of us, even if we disagree.

And perhaps the most wonderful wonder in womanhood comes when the voice of the older, in all the beauty and wisdom of her age, calls forth destiny in the younger.  Calling back to remind her that there is life after youth and beauty as young love gives way to deep passion and her design, purpose, and value remain, for these are not rooted in youth or superficial beauty, but rather in the true, lasting beauty and power of the femininity God has gifted to her.

And it is, my beautiful friend, a wonderful life to live.