When I was much younger, I had a habit of stretching rubber bands and then watch it bounce back. There were times that I would stretch it beyond its limit that it would get slack or snap up. I believe that is the way life stretches us to see if we would bounce back, get slack or snap up.
Nature pulls the rubber band on ladies especially. Pregnancy and child birth stretches a woman.
I had the privilege of watching nature pull its string a while ago. When a woman gets pregnant, her face will begin to receive some bulge, her nose gets some push (not all women though), her breast receives some pump, her backside gets some boost and then the tummy will begin to ball. As the tummy gets bigger, her belly button then pops out and opens like that of a butterfly. As the months roll by, nature persists with its stretching task on a pregnant woman, on visible and non-visible parts of her body until it peaks with obvious stretch marks on her tummy and a few other parts.
The day of delivery is the most fascinating of it all (*not fascinating to the woman in labour*). The birth canal begins to stretch centimetre by centimetre (dilation) until a limit that ensures the smooth passage of the baby. After the delivery, nature then has a way of releasing the rubber band and everything gets restored back to factory setting (*not exactly 100% though*).
The physical stretch I believe is just a pointer that there is a pull on every facet of the woman’s life that is capable of making her slack or snap. How do we deal with the pull?
1. A woman must come to terms with the fact that she has been acted upon: Just like a verb in its passive form, where the subject receives the action of the object, a woman is like the subject of a sentence that receives the action of the object (husband and children in this context) but in a positive light. She has to reconcile with the fact that “once upon a time, I was a single and autonomous, but now I am married and under authority”. She has to reconcile with the fact that she no more has absolute control over her time and space, that she to stoop to conquer. As she beings to have children, she also have to come to terms with the fact that she lends God your womb to give rise to another being that will be a colossus in His kingdom, therefore, she delightfully carry out such task notwithstanding the metamorphosis that goes with it (*smiles*). So what should the woman do?
2. Step up to Active Form
Yes a a woman is the subject that receives the action of the object, but she must choose to get active. It is very easy to get cold spiritually when a lady gets married and especially when she begins to bear children. She can heave under the pull that womanhood brings and slows down on spiritual activities till she lose her spiritual identity. The pull also tend to tug at her career, her finances, her social life etc till she lapse into the league of old wife fable chit chat. Yes she must come to terms that she had been acted upon but she must refuse to stay passive, she therefore has to up her game, develop structures and systems to beat the pull and stay ahead. She must develop system to keep her spirit aglow, even brighter than it was as a single lady. She must have realistic career plan, as well as other aspects of her life.
3. Realize that she is well able
To remain firm, not slack like an overused rubber or snap up like a useless rubber band, a woman, especially newlyweds and new mums, must realize that she is well able and has all it takes to be a woman. Just as the breast milk begins to flow at the point of delivery, every woman has all that it takes. She has so much capacity within and without to juggle it all. She has all the endowment to be a woman, a wife, a mother, a successful professional or entrepreneur, a useful vessel in God’s hand and also keep the *smile* on her face.
Just like every pulled rubber band has the options to either bounce back to normal shape, get slack or snap up, every woman decide her fate no matter how hard nature pulls at her band.
