You Think I'm Strong-Willed? Whatever THAT Means!

There were only TWO other women at the conference with sparkle shoes.  One of them was Sally Baucke, the woman who taught me it's okay to wear sparkle shoes and find the joy in your life right where you are.  The other woman was like me, just trying to be as fashionable as Sally!

So you know that class on being a strong-willed wife that I shamefully admitted to signing up for?  It was GOOD!  Real good. 

I sat right in the front row, because my fun-sized friend has trouble seeing over the heads in front of us when we aren’t in stadium seating.  She's adorable, and I am only teasing about her height... But see for yourself.     

Isn't she cute?  She also LOVES Sally.  Someday I'd love to see the two of them preform a skit at Hearts at Home together!  They're both hilarious and have big heart for sharing Jesus.

Truthfully I found out in later sessions that even I  at 5’9” also have trouble seeing over the crowd ahead of me. 
My friend and I  had the best seats in the house for this workshop.  God placed both of us there because we NEEDED it.  He knew it, and we discovered it!

I learned I AM strong-willed. I mean  I was pretty sure I was, but I didn't see how it was effecting my marriage until the workshop on Saturday.  

We started off with taking a quiz and I scored 33 out of 40.   If I was even more honest with myself I probably would have scored a few points higher yet! 

I didn’t really see my personality characteristics as a problem, until Dr. Debbie Cherry, our speaker, started explaining HOW other people view these traits.

Thankfully I also learned there are myths to what being strong-willed means.  I bought into all of the myths as a strong-willed person myself and for the people I feel are strong willed around me.

Being strong-willed doesn’t mean that you are a bad girl.  It doesn’t mean you’re automatically the big-B-word. 

The problem comes when you don't use your gift of being SW'd correctly, you may come across as um... witchy. 

We aren't all witchy though.  We're just passionate.  We love Jesus just the same as anyone else does; we just aren’t quiet about it. 

We love the Proverbs 31 woman and we feel inspired by her, not intimidated by her.  This was really eye opening for me.  I have heard so many women talk about how impossible it is to imitate the Proverbs 31 woman.  They get really uncomfortable and even a little angry talking about her and how unrealistic she is.  I’ve never felt like that, I’ve always thought she was encouraging to me.   

Some positive traits of being a SW'd woman are this:  Motivated, Passionate, Energetic, Charismatic, Confident, Independent and we are born leaders with BIG DREAMS.  These are NOT bad things at all.   I particularly like this list actually. 

So yes, I am SW’d in that I will rearrange a food line to make it flow better (I’ll try to stop this, I swear it).  I didn’t even realize it was a problem until she spoke of it.  I’ve also rearranged restaurants to make them more conducive to conversation.  My family rolls their eyes when I do this.  I thought they were innocently giving me a hard time.  They probably weren’t.

The plus side is I’m also SW’d in that I am so passionate about marriage and helping others finding their self-worth that I will lay down my wants/needs to provide for others, because I feel so strongly about it. 

 I love passionately, just not quietly.  That truth was so freeing. 

The next step is learning how to control this gift of being Strong-Willed.  My usual interruption is happening now (the baby waking up) I’ll post a part 2 when I can!  There are so many amazing qualities to being strong-willed, so I hope you will check back to hear more!

 

The speaker I’m referring to is Dr. Debbie Cherry and she has written a book called The Strong-Willed Wife: Using Your Personality to Honor God And Your Husband {affiliate link}.


Here is a link to some hilarious clips featuring Sally Baucke.