What is a Woman?

To my children and grandchildren…

It is for you and your future and your freedom that I fight.

You live fiercely in my heart…

In 2022, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked the question “What is a woman?” during her confirmation hearings.

She responded by stating that she didn’t know.

I decided I’d answer the question for her—for me—for us…

A woman is Adam’s rib.

Made in God’s image—image bearer to be man’s helpmate, lover, companion, friend, soulmate.

She is ambassador of love and compassion, mercy, justice, hope, tenderness, and ministry to her husband and to all who know her.

She is beauty and passion, wisdom and strength.

She is daughter, wife, sister, friend, and if she is most blessed among women—mother.

The day she pledges to become one with her husband seems the climax of her existence until the day her body splits in half and she is transformed into Mother—discovering herself supernaturally connected to a human life she instantly recognizes as own her heart beating outside her body.

And she contemplates for years how this process could replicate itself multiple times and how her heart could be torn in so many directions and yet beat harder and stronger than it ever did prior to the arrival of each new life that somehow fills the pieces she didn’t know were missing until the final child and the final chapter—and all is right with the world because finally her heart is full.

As she journeys through motherhood, she is both student and teacher.

She learns to become caregiver, coach, counselor, discipler, protector, warrior, servant, friend.

She can do very few of the things a man can do.

And if she is wise, she understands that this is because she was made to do everything a man cannot.

What is a woman?

She is image bearer of the Most High God and the very fingerprint of His divine design.

What she is not is the sum total of her body parts, rather the parts of God He chose to uniquely display through her and her femininity.

The assault on the definition of woman is not an assault on women though it often feels that way. 

It is an assault on the Creator, His workmanship, and the uniquely female masterpiece He called “woman”.

No man could ever become a woman. 

For a woman cannot be designed by the hands of a mortal who was not given authority, power, or the supernatural intellect required to design any living creature—much less the unparalleled beauty and life bearer that is uniquely woman.

Let us pray that America’s future leaders would be granted the fear of the Lord and the wisdom to discern the perfection of His creative order.

And may we never again even consider a Supreme Court nominee (or any other government official) unable to answer yet another salient question of our generation…

“What is a woman?”

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A footnote…

I have been repeatedly asked my thoughts on why so many women—so many mothers—have risen to leadership roles in the Freedom Movement of the last four years.

The answer is simple.

The day we become mothers, each of us makes the decision to die twice.

Once for our child and once before he or she is ever delivered.

We choose their lives over ours.

They get a chance, or we die trying to give them one.

It is a conscious choice.

I made it three times during childbirth.

And a fourth time in 2020…when they came for my children.