An Affirmation for Women - by Lakin Easterling

I heard once that Lucifer was the most beautiful angel. That he outshone every other, and was breathtaking in form and sound. He was likened to the bright star on the horizon of dawn, a silver twinkle along the vastitude of the day’s unfolding orange and pink and lavender. I’ve also heard that in his heart resides a bitter thorn for the word Woman and the beauty she holds, because she is a completion, a crowning glory, the magnum opus of creation. She is the beauty, the morning star, of a people crafted from planetary substance, filled with the breath that Lucifer himself used to inhale before exhaling the first note of a song.

In short, we have holy breath. We are filled to glowing with the vibrato of a God who delights in elegance. And in that breath, we have been challenged.

The challenge arises from mothers, from fathers, from siblings, lovers, friends, children, aunts and uncles, coworkers – whoever and all – over the fact that there is something the Holy Song has left in our garden-shod bodies.

Our voice is the uncovering of the treasures left behind in our genes from the very beginning of conception.

Our voice is the unleashing of the holy onto the ordinary substances of this spinning vessel.

Our voice is the permission for humanity to bloom like the dawn, to soften the edges between light and dark, to cross over the threshold of night and day, and to make space for the glory only image bearers of such a Maker could restore.

Ours is the voice that has been told it is not enough and too much. Ours is the voice that has been deemed too provocative or not revealing enough.

Ours is the voice of a great and holy power that comes behind the preparations and deems it truly, undeniably good.

Ours is the voice of confirmation, of encouragement, and of completion. We carry beings in our bodies, forming them fully from specs and atoms until they are ready to be whole enough. We do that! We make, we create, we shift from tiny infant to infinite imaginative child to unfolding feminine hearts to fully formed queens of nature and existence in order to birth those same transitions in the rest of the world.

And we have been told our transitions are void? Are not welcome? Are unnatural? We have, and we have listened.

We have exchanged our hour of daybreak for an hour of mourning.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for the same God that dwelleth in the light also dwelleth in the shadows.

Though we walk through the hours of drenched lashes, improperly balanced scales, roughly shod feet and dirty homes, we are kin to the same Son that walked through mud and a sea of bones, recalling life from every dead man begging for sight or healed limbs. Though we walk in the hard fought with crimson nails and lips, raw from the cuff of injustice, we are Bride to the Healer and the Maker and the Spirit.

Be not afraid of your darkness, Beloved, for in the womb of shadows pressing too close, you are rolled and burnished bright as pearls. Be not afraid of your light, Beloved, for in the pressures of a soul opening into the world, you become fully formed into the purpose you were designed for.

Be not afraid, Woman, of your name.

Be not afraid, Woman, of your birthright.

Be not afraid, Woman, of your transitions.

You are alive. You are alive. You are alive!

Be free in your glory, in your presence, in your voice and heart and mind and body and soul. Dance naked across your kitchen floor! Sing loud with the windows of your car rolled all the way down at a stoplight! Share a piece of chocolate with a stranger. Embrace your physical life with the laughter pulled in by holy breath and exhaled with the hope that every fence and every boundary and every checkmark that has tried to diminish your spirit has been broken by a Savior who is less Knight in Shining Armor and more Last of the Mohicans. He is wild and strong in his love, and empowers in his love, and bestows with his love. He fights with a banner of love and sets a feast with the abundance of your oppressors. He keeps you, Beloved.

He keeps you, Beloved.

He keeps you, Beloved. He is not afraid of the depths you will go to, nor is he jealous of your heights. He knows your glory and is steadfast in helping you ascend to it.

His love is a freedom, the sky in which your star is set. Be not afraid of your place. Be free in your being. Be Woman, fully alive.