I’m so in love with Keith Urban’s new song “Female.”

Sister, shoulder

Daughter, lover,

Healer, broken halo

Mother Nature

Fire, suit of armor

Soul survivor, Holy Water

Secret keeper, fortune teller

Virgin Mary, scarlet letter

Technicolor river wild

Baby girl, women shine

Female

Keith Urban.  Husband and father to two daughters.  Now that’s a man who knows where his bread is buttered. As a female myself, raising three mini females, my instinct is to whoop whoop Arsenio Hall style when I hear it.  But not in an I am woman hear me roar kind of way.  More like an I am woman and maybe I don’t NEED to roar kind of way.

A few weeks ago two marches were held across our country.  One was the March for Life protesting abortion and the other was the Women’s March protesting all kinds of things.  A year ago I was very vocal about my beliefs on the Women’s March  (I’ve got a mouth on me!) in which I held nothing back about my opinion.  I still don’t regret a word of it.  But this year instead of venting and ranting, I went out and actually marched.  But I marched for Life.  And I brought two of my three daughters with me (my 87 year old middle daughter was afraid it was too chilly, it might rain, the cars might hit us so she stayed behind where it was “safe”).  I’ve marched before for breast cancer and for Down Syndrome.  I’ve marched at my share of Mardi Gras parades with the girl scouts and behind the barricades to the band. And we all know most days I march to the beat of my own drum.  But for the first time I went out and actually marched for Life.  There is no other cause in this world that I feel more strongly about than the Pro-Life cause and it surprises even me that I’ve never marched for Life before.  And it’s not a typo that I capitalize the word Life.   Marching in the rain with hundreds of others, down the city’s busiest street, was powerful.  It was quiet, the only sounds were the voices in unison praying the Rosary.  No chanting, no screaming.  But the message was loud and clear.  Choose Life.

I’ve been pregnant five times.  First came Abby, a product of lackadaisical natural family planning eight months into marriage.  Then came Lane, planned and anticipated.  And after he died 11 months later it took four years to conceive again.  It took many doctor visits, injections and money before we just threw our hands up and then came Mary-Grace, all in God’s time.  Next was “Matthew”, who was very unplanned and very unexpected.  And just as unplanned and unexpected, he went up to Heaven before we got to meet him.  And then came Molly.  Oh Molly.  Unexpected, unplanned, no explanation for how she got there ( I think we passed in the hall), indescribable… Molly.  The Legers…party of 7.

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.  Do we have to legally, formally, presidentially, systematically, or officially be in charge to actually run the world?  We already do.  There is no Life without women (I mean, technically men play a part but come on….their part takes 3 minutes, 7 if we’re lucky and if we’re really, really lucky, a minute and a half).  Who runs the household, the school, the office, the car pool?  Who handles Christmas from the first ornament hung to the last stocking stuffed, dyes the eggs, matches the shoes to the bow, writes the check for the collection, monitors the grades, makes the practice test, plans the trip, coordinates the costumes, starts the crockpot, updates the calendar, refills the medicines and keeps her cool?  Don’t we already run the world?

Keith says…

When somebody talks about how it was Adam first

                Does that make you second best?

                Or did he save the best for last?

Clearly it’s the latter.  God’s original version was not equipped for actually running the world.  Only for pretending to!

The hot topic today is the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.  I have no experience with sexual  harassment or abuse so I won’t even pretend to understand the pain.  But I am having a hard time getting behind a cause that is only a cause now that it has become popular.  I’m having a hard time finding sympathy for women who knew and said nothing because they needed a powerful slime ball of a man to get ahead.  And the women who were affected and not only said nothing but continued to be affected because they wanted what he had to offer to get ahead.  Those were choices.  And now because it has become popular to speak out, those choices have turned into testimonies, creeds and badges of honor.   All of the sudden these women are heroes because they “had” to do what they “needed” to do either on their back or on their knees on their way to fame?  No, they had a choice.  And if that was the only choice in order to “succeed”, then a true hero would have chosen a different industry.  Their choices and claim of sudden victimhood belittle and diminish the real victims of this crime.  The women caught in dark alleys and parking garages, the women and children of poverty stricken countries who are raped and pillaged and those who are sold and trafficked every day.  THOSE women had no choice.   I want to hear the stories of the women who said Nope, not taking that road if that’s how I have to get there.

Sister, shoulder….healer, broken halo….suit of armor…soul survivor…secret keeper…

God has used music to communicate with me my whole life.  So much so that Joy Behar would have me in the padded cell next to Mike Pence.  When we were trying to just keep breathing after Lane died He sent me Held by Natalie Grant during that first week.  This is what it means to be held.  How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life.  And you survive.  Or like a year and a half ago when I found myself very overwhelmed with kids, schedules, bills and an urgent deadline, He sent the songs.  When I was working against the clock to finish a breakfast room for a dear client who was battling cancer, when her husband called to tell me she died before I could finish, He sent three songs in a row about storms then He drove my car to the closest church and planted me in front of the crucifix for an hour.  That poor janitor didn’t know what to do at the sight and sounds of me that day.  When I’ve walked the floor with babies with ear infections, or changed wet sheets at 4:05 in the morning, or picked up a sick child from school the first day back after a 9 day break, or driven the same dancing route 8 times that week, He sends the likes of Trace Adkins’ It Won’t Be Like this for Long or Kenny Chesney’s There Goes My Life.   When December and its insanity hit and I’m running on autopilot, He sends me that first Mary Did You Know and Little Drummer Boy to bring me to my knees.  He uses those not only to remind me of what it’s really all about but to remind me to feel.  To remember who and what has been lost and then remember the promise that it’s not for long.  And if those don’t work then He’ll send me Christmas Shoes and good gracious alive it’s not good if He has to send me Christmas Shoes (talk about question every parenting decision ever made…am I raising kids who will buy their momma Christmas shoes??).  And don’t even get me started on the St. Jude telethons.  Every song, every parent’s testimony spoken over the melody….here you go….here’s my credit card, my social security number, my IRA account passwords.  Take it all.

So when He keeps sending a song about females, He means it.

Sister, shoulder….healer, broken halo….suit of armor…soul survivor…secret keeper….

In a day and age where women are clamoring to be heard, seen, validated, recognized, here is a song about the quieter, unseen, unrewarded side to us.  And doesn’t it speak louder than any speech or rant ever could?  What we do that goes without notice, without recognition, isn’t it as important if not more than what they do that often gets all the attention? Men may technically “run” the world but they run it because we let them!  What we do makes it possible.  Somewhere, somehow there’s always a woman behind the curtain making it happen.  Whether it’s picking out the tie, offering support, writing the speech, putting supper on the table, holding the clipboard to a million other things that make it possible, there’s always a woman.

She’s the heart of life

She’s the dreamer’s dream

She’s the hands of time

She’s the queen of kings 

My husband will tell you I’m not a submissive type of wife.  Like I’ve said, I’ve got a mouth of me.  If I ever, God forbid, found myself on the betrayed side of marriage, there would be no Tammy Wynette Stand by Your Man playing in my head.  I would go full on Carrie Underwood with my key dug into the side of his white 4-wheel drive,” Queenie wuz here” would be carved into his leather seats, and the Louisville slugger would stay stuck in his head lights.  Like I said, God speaks to me through music and that is definitely the song He’d send to me in THAT situation.  But I digress…submissive I am not but I’ve also come to know, understand and appreciate our roles.  This household survives (and some days it actually thrives) because he does what he does and I do what I do.  And while we would be on the street if he didn’t do what he did, we would still be on the street if I didn’t do what I do.  Well, he would be on the street because I’d be at my momma’s.

God made Adam from dust.  He made Eve from a rib.  We came second because He needed the rib.  We are the stronger one and He knew we’d have to be.  It takes great strength to stand behind the curtain and be okay with it.