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Author: Dr. Michelle Watson<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n (Hey everyone\u2026I know this is heavier-weighted content, but hang in there\u2026I promise it will be worth it!)<\/em><\/p>\n Every once in awhile a speaker will communicate truth in such a way that it literally touches a core place inside the listener. Dr. Larry Crabb has been one of those truth-speakers into my life. I\u2019ll never forget hearing him speak a few years ago where his insights were so impactful that I chewed on what he said for days, culminating in my telling him through tears the impact of his words on my soul and spirit.<\/p>\n The reason I\u2019m sharing this with you today as a dad of a daughter is to\u00a0empower you to guard and protect, lead, and champion your daughter\u2019s heart with increasing precision because her open heart is her lifeline to health, vitality, purpose, and vision.<\/strong>\u00a0I believe this will give you insight into why it\u2019s vital that your daughter\u2019s heart stay\u00a0open\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>in order to be the woman God created her to be.<\/p>\n Here is the essence of Dr. Larry\u2019s seminar on gender:<\/p>\n In Genesis 2 when Adam first saw Eve, he called her \u201ciyshah,\u201d a female form of the word for man, \u201ciysh.\u201d\u00a0 However, in Genesis 1:26 and 27 when God says, \u201cLet us make mankind in our own image\u2026male and female He created them,\u201d these are two different Hebrew words to denote gender. \u201cZakar\u201d is used for male and \u201cnequebah\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0for female.<\/p>\n During his talk Dr. Larry said,\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t think you women are necessarily going to like the meaning of the word for female, but here it is: Nequebah literally means\u00a0punctured, bored through<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0Hmmm\u2026that was indeed a very unexpected, odd definition of the word in my opinion. Our collective responses in the room led most of us to turn toward each other with puzzled looks on our faces. Dr. Larry further explained that \u201cnequebah\u201d means\u00a0\u201cto be opened while arranging yourself consistently for a larger purpose than you.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>I\u00a0LOVED<\/em>hearing that! My spirit began to awaken with curiosity as I was now intrigued and wanted to hear more.<\/p>\n Bridging this concept then to Jesus on the cross, he noted that it was literally this act of being punctured and bored through that demonstrated Jesus\u2019 openness to God\u2019s larger purpose both in Him and through Him. Clearly Jesus understood and lived out the meaning of\u00a0surrendered openness<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0as a reflection of the depth of relationship He had with His Father. He modeled the beauty of submission, surrender, obedience and openness.<\/p>\n Even today I continue to ponder this truth that Jesus made the choice to suffer and die by allowing Himself to be punctured and bored through. And I still am overcome with emotion as I celebrate the reality of Christ\u2019s selfless love, a love that has truly aligned itself with the core of who I am as a woman.\u00a0I had never thought of Jesus\u2019 death on the cross in this way before.<\/em><\/p>\n I see now—according to this definition—that Jesus has fully identified with me as a woman (since God, the Three-in-one, isn\u2019t gender specific) and I revel in knowing that He still connects with me as a female in this way.<\/p>\n The reality for me, a woman with an abuse history—where I have been taken advantage of, violated, and overpowered by more than one man—has been to activate instinctual self-protection whenever I don\u2019t feel safe. In fact, throughout a bulk of the first four decades of my life I would often put up an invisible internal wall out of fear that I would be \u201cpunctured\u201d again. Sometimes those walls have been literal (where I\u2019d create physical distance) whereas at other times it was an unspoken barrier that people would feel around me that gave them the message that I wasn\u2019t available or open to relating.<\/p>\n The truth is that I used to feel threatened as a result of someone activating or bumping up against my deep-seeded fears. It used to tap into my core terror of being crushed or bored through or stolen from.<\/strong>\u00a0I can tell you honestly that in those instances I never intended to be brash or harsh. But when I was triggered, my openness would close off and I would go into fight-or-flight mode.<\/p>\n I know that God longs for me to reconnect with His original design for me as a woman, one who is\u00a0open<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0and vulnerable<\/em><\/strong>, willing to be used by Him to impact others by inviting them also to respond with openness.<\/p>\n I have found that by welcoming people into my heart, my life, and my home,\u00a0I experience the redemption of God\u2019s original purpose for me as a woman: one who lives vulnerably without fear, all the while being open and released to give and receive only what is for God\u2019s purposes.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n And from this incredible place of healing and freedom,\u00a0the walls of self-protection are no longer needed when I focus on Him as my Protector.<\/strong><\/p>\n Dr. Larry closed by giving us one of the most incredible definitions of being a woman that I have ever heard:<\/p>\n \u201cA beautiful woman is so at rest in God\u2019s delight in her that she enjoys her undamageable beauty such that she invites others to connect and relate openly not guardedly, invitingly not controllingly, courageously not defensively—to encourage another to be consumed by God\u2019s beauty at any cost to herself so that she can reveal God to His community.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n As a father, why not use these words to guide your prayers for your daughter so she can connect to her beautiful female essence while reflecting the God who made her in His image!<\/p>\n Dr. Watson has a clinical counseling practice in Portland, Oregon, and has served in that role for the past 20 years. She also has the privilege of being up close and personal with girls in their teens and 20\u2019s over the past 35+ years in such roles as camp counselor, mentor, teacher, and speaker. You can find out more about Dr. Watson on her\u00a0website<\/a>. You can also listen to her on the\u00a0Dad Whisperer Podcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author: Dr. Michelle Watson (Hey everyone\u2026I know this is heavier-weighted content, but hang in there\u2026I promise it will be worth it!) Every once in awhile a speaker will communicate truth in such a way that it literally touches a core place inside the listener. Dr. Larry Crabb has been one of those truth-speakers into my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dads-with-daughters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3505,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions\/3505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHe then took us to 2 Kings 12:9 where we read that King Joash commissioned Jehoiada, the high priest, to \u201cnequebah\u201d the lid of a box for use as a container of money for repairing the temple.\u00a0The box was opened as a vessel that was used for God\u2019s purposes.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/f357d410faa707a370a6bfe04\/images\/6b3bc930-9b05-45c7-9a66-d26808f22443.jpg\")
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