Grateful Reflection

Today I am grateful for the seemingly mundane.

I wonder how women managed their menstrual cycles in the past- the heavy bleeding and pain.

I wonder how they bore their children. While medicinal herbs existed, many lacked access to pain relief during labour. Science has advanced so much that even history agrees, this current era is better.

Of course, it didn’t seem much of a problem then, for they knew no other way.

No epidurals, no options for anaesthesia during life-threatening births. Some women undergoing Caesarean sections (CS) felt every cut, every stitch, while already weakened from unsuccessful attempts at a vaginal birth.

I am grateful the stigma surrounding a Caesarean Section is slowly, but gradually reducing.

Grateful for the divine intelligence of modern medicine.

I wonder what it felt like to be deemed less valuable than livestock in some cultures. Or what it meant to have my testimony considered worthless solely due to my gender.

I am grateful for the women and men who fought so that women could own landed properties, vote, earn and live in dignity.

Above all, I am grateful to the Lord who changed the system- declaring through His sacrifice that there is neither male nor female in His eyes. That women are not to be treated as lesser.

He revealed that biblical submission was never meant to be subjugation.

In fact, I now understand that many men did not truly know what it meant to love. Loving like the Lord means serving- putting one’s wife before oneself or anything else. To wash her feet, to die to himself daily so she may live fully.

There would always be room for growth, but I admit that we have come a long way, and I am grateful for it.

This is no malicious expression toward the male gender or even society. I know so many good men, all of whom value, respect and love women. The ones I would always love.