Women with "True Grit"

"Mommy, you have no bumps on your arms."

"What do you mean, bumps?"

"Daddy has big bumps on his arms."

"Oh, you mean muscles."

"Yes. You don’t have any muscles."

While it’s true that my arms cannot compare to my husband's (or to that of First Lady Michelle Obama), I am not completely without “bumps” as my three year old would claim. I have birthed two hefty boys and have carried them up and down stairs, lifted them in and out of car seats and have paced back in forth with them in my arms during the long watches of the night. I do, indeed, have muscles (in addition to back and shoulder problems).

Yet, my true strength as a woman does not come from my muscle definition alone. I come for a long line of strong women who defy the notion that woman is the weaker sex. My grandma on my dad’s side was a farmer’s wife and mother to six children (four of those boys). A sweet woman full of love and compassion, one might not see the strength in this soft-spoken woman. She survived breast cancer as a younger woman, reared six children, and made several trips to the emergency room with sons with broken ribs, collar bones, poisoning from insecticide, a lacerated hand, and more. Farming isn’t for the faint of heart. When her youngest wandered into the pen with steers, she boldly ran in, getting kicked in the head, so she could rescue her little boy. She passed away two years ago and I still miss her sweet smile. I will always remember that she carried herself with strength, grace and dignity.

My own mother has raised four children in the mission field of the inner city. She managed to take care of all of us as well as lead a dynamic ministry among women in the city. I've watched her hold her own in dangerous neighborhoods where people questioned her right to be there spreading the Word of God. She never let fear deter her from what God called her to do. 

Whenever I feel overwhelmed and I think, “Life is too hard. I just don’t have the strength to do what needs to be done”, I remember the women who came before me. The hardy pioneer women who gave birth in leaky wagons on the Oregon Trail, the intrepid women who stepped up during WWII and did a “man’s job” working in aircraft and munitions factories, and the uncompromising women who fought for equality so I can vote. And then I think of the women whose faces I know well- my own mother and grandmothers. And I think, if they were strong, I can be strong.

"I have enjoyed riches and suffered the pangs of poverty. I have seen U.S. Grant when he was little known. I have baked bread for General Fremont and talked to Kit Carson. I have run from bear and killed most all other kinds of smaller game."

~ Nancy Kelsey, pioneer and mother of 11 children, 1841 (America's Women, Gail Collins, 209).