Question...

Lately I’ve started to question what it means to be woman of God. For a lot of reasons, really. Next month I’ll be 24, which makes me officially feel like an adult. An adult that still lives at home, and is barely learning to live with a budget. An adult that has been in a relationship for a little over a year, an adult that most days wishes she had been born a boy and had been Navy Seal or a professional soccer player.

As I have started getting more and more serious in my relationship with another person, I've started to question what it means to be a woman of God. Before I start to understand what my role is as a daughter, girlfriend, friend, etc., I have started the process of getting to know myself a little bit more.

For example, I’m not the most romantic person, I am more organized than I thought, I don’t like school, and I love talking to people.

As I started to question who God is, I grew a lot more confident in who I am. I realized it’s not about being myself, it’s about being who God created me to be.

I’ve often times felt like I know who I was, but truth is, as I enter “adulthood” (which for me did not start at the age of 18 – as I’m sure it didn’t for lots of other people), I realize more and more things about myself.

It has brought me to question a lot. Like, did my parent’s divorce affect me in any major ways? Is my last relationship following my new relationship today? Is my past making me better or bitter? Is there something in my current lifestyle that I need to change? I’ve learned that the answer to most of these questions is ‘Yes’, in both good and bad ways. There is a lot about my life that I know the enemy is just waiting to use against me.

What do I think being a woman of God means? I don’t think I’ll ever fully grasp it, but I’m learning that I constantly have to run to God for help. I think that’s where it all starts. I want to be willing to know that I might be wrong, I want to be willing to learn and to change. I want to be courageous to follow God where he is asking me to go. I truly believe that God’s calling me to live by the following verse:
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men (or women) of courage; be strong. Do everything in love. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

I am called to be on my guard, to know the difference of the good and the bad and to use my God and my Bible as weapons against the enemy. I am called to stand firm in the faith, to know what I believe and to act on it. I am called to be a woman of courage, to not stand back and watch things happen to me, or others, but to take action and stand up for the woman that God created me to be. I am called to be strong (and I’m learning that doesn’t mean I can’t cry), to stand tall to who I am and be confident, I will not let what others say change how I feel about myself or my God. Last, but certainly not least, God is calling me to do everything with love. That opens up a whole new can of worms, but love is something mentioned so much in His Word that I can’t let it slide by, I must act on it and love.

I’m discovering how imperfect I am, every day is a constant battle with the paragraph above. I have my struggles just like every woman does, but one thing to me is clear: This world will pull me a million different directions and a million different people will tell me what I’m supposed to be so, I have to be on guard and know who God has created me to be and who God is. If I lose that, I lose everything.

Jamina Carbajal was born in Peru, where she dreamed of speaking English. She is passionate about women's ministry and traveling.