Daring to be Restless

The temptation, on some days, to think that I am somehow a disappointment, that I am not as I should be, that I am somehow too much and too little all at the same time … is overwhelming to say the least, as I’m sure many women know.   And yet, this week, as I was listening to a sermon by Lisa Bevere about Isaiah 52:1-2, God began showing me something powerful about who I am called to be as a woman, and who you (if you are also a woman) are to be.   Isaiah 52:1-2 in the Knox translation says: “Up, up, array thyself , Sion, in all thy strength; clothe thyself as befits thy new glory , Jerusalem, city of the Holy One!   The uncircumcised, the unclean shall enter thee no more.   Shake the dust from thee, Jerusalem, rise up and take thy throne ; rid thy neck of the chains that bound it, Sion, once captive queen! ” Once captive queen … that phrase captures my imagination, calls to the deep, long forsaken places of my heart and beckons me to awake.   Even reading the words now, the wo