Woman Problems

Sometimes I read things and I get all amped like "Yeah! Nurse your baby in public!" or "No! I won't apologize for my crying child!" or "I'm a woman and I want to share my opinion!"

And then real life happens. All the things I feel strongly about... well, they shrink, and I'm just a little girl again, and who cares about little girls? Not men (this is my mind talking).

I was in a coffee shop the other day and Leon was quite boyish and wild. Then I put him in the car seat to leave and he was crying. What did I do? I apologized to a table of three blue-collar looking men that I assumed I was bothering. They seemed kind of gruff. It went against everything in me! Why did I do it? It's a crying baby. Get over it. I'm leaving. But, I did it. And they all, loudly and interrupting each other, told me not to apologize and that they all had kids and they were just glad I was getting out. What?! Thank you, men, for being different than I thought you'd be. Sorry I'm a jerk and assume that you're jerks.

I sprint back and forth between being a chest-beating woman (in my mind), and a quiet, apologizing, doormat, child-thing (in real life).

Why? I don't know. How can a person think so little of themselves and then so much of themselves in a split moment?

We had a guest speaker at church on Sunday. He was really good, and I got to stay in for the whole service. It was the first full service I've been in since Leon was born. He read/preached from the passage about Zacheus the wee little man. It was good and it was the gospel and I needed to hear it. I sang that morning, so between services (I was in the band bother services) I was with the band and the pastor and a few others. I wanted to tell him that his sermon was the first I'd heard since before my 7.5 month old baby was born, and how meaningful it was to me, and how badly I needed to hear it. But I was too scared. Cuz I'm a girl. I didn't even meet the guy. Just sat five feet from him while all the men talked.

And I over exaggerate. I did talk. But I had all these feelings.

Which just proves to me that I need to tell myself the truth more often. I am loved so much more than I can imagine, even when my heart is hard and dark and thinks that the male gender is awful. I have a sweet husband who disproves that belief all the time. We are all broken and we all need grace.