A Quiverful

I've been doing some reading and thinking a lot about men's and women's--and ultimately--boy's and girl's roles.  Of course I only have sons, but I am a daughter, so I do have some experience with both.

I was raised basically to enjoy boy things.  I played sports, hunted and gutted animals, and fished and backpacked.  I was expected not to get emotional and to be able to do things without assistance.  I never despised the state of motherhood, I just didn't think about it very often.

Going to college I encountered wonderful teachings on femininity, and initially it repulsed me.  I thought being feminine meant being silly or frilly or emotional and I wanted nothing to do with it.  However, those who taught me godly femininity were none of those things.  They were beautiful, intelligent, highly-educated women, who intimidated any weasel-like attentions that they got from men.  They also were (or soon became) wonderful mothers.  They taught their children well, shared the gospel wherever they went, and frightened most of the unbelievers around them!

Their testimony definitely swayed my heart to a belief in true, godly femininity, and I repented of my previous attitudes.  However, I have occasionally seen some who supposedly triumph Biblical femininity denigrating or limiting what there is for their girls to do in the world.  My heart would react against that, although my mind knew not why, until I read something Doug Wilson said where he called boys "conquerors" and girls "conqueror-bearers."

Psalms 127:5 says "As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are the children of the youth.  Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate."  All children are represented as weapons--and not only the boys!  

So, then, what exactly is a women's battleground?  I ask, where did those arrows come from?  The one fashioning and shaping those weapons, gently placing them into the quiver of her husband, is the wife--the bearer of conquerors.  The wife is in charge of the artillery.

I should also mention that this does not mean that a woman without children cannot bear conquerors.  There are multiple Biblical examples of childless women being triumphant against the seed of the serpent.  Sarah (for most of her life), Deborah, and Esther just to name a few.  St. Augustine once said that to know what God wills for your life you should love Him, and then do as you please.  All of these ladies were conquerors by loving God, honoring their husbands, and then doing as they pleased.