A Meditation on the Honor of Femininity

"His sacred intent for you and for me is nothing short of absolute abandonment to Jesus Christ, entire separation from the pollution of the world and ardent worship of our King with every breath we take."

- Leslie Ludy

• My Vow - Whatsoever Thou sayest unto me, by Thy grace I will do it
• My Constraint - Thy love, O Christ, my Lord
• My Confidence - Thou art able to keep that which I have committed unto Thee.
• My Joy - To do Thy will, O God
• My discipline - That which I would not choose, but which Thy love appoints
• My Prayer - Conform my will to thine
• My Motto - Love to live: Live to love
• My Portion - The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance.

Amy Carmichael’s Sisters of the Common Life

“I don’t want anybody treating me as a ‘person’ rather than as a woman. Our sexual differences are the terms of our life, and to obscure them in any way is to weaken the very fabric of life itself. When they are lost, we are lost. Some women fondly imagine a new beginning of liberty, but it is in reality a new bondage, more bitter than anything they seek to be liberated from. I want to know not ‘people’ but men and women. I am interested in men as men, in women as women.”

 “No woman who has not learned to master herself can be trusted to submit willingly to her husband. And that word willingly means that she does not merely resign herself to something she cannot avoid. It means that by an act of her own will she gives herself. With gladness she submits because she understands that voluntary submission is her very strength. Because it is the thing asked of her by her Creator, it is the thing which assures her of fulfillment. It is the task assigned her which, willingly performed, actually strengthens the husband in his weakness.”

“The strong-willed person wills against himself, chooses that which he does not naturally choose, refuses that which he would naturally choose. Many men protest that it is not their nature to dominate. Many see their wives as superior to them in intelligence, strength of character, physical endurance, or spiritual perception, and use this as an excuse to let them lead. The roles are not assigned on the basis of capability. They were determined at the beginning of Creation to be a man’s role and a woman’s role and again, we are not free to experiment, tamper with, or exchange them.”

 “The more womanly you are, the more manly your husband will want to be.”

Elisabeth Elliot

“A woman who carries herself like a lady is far more apt to be treated like a lady.”

Leslie Ludy

“We all need to add more nobility to our behavior, more majesty to our language, more elegance to our presentation, and more sacred decorum to our bearing.”

– Leslie Ludy –

“If our culture always expects young women to be playing with their sexual power, always at the ready for the advances of anyone, this means they never have the right to say ‘no.’”

“Our dignity is in our secrets. If nothing is secret, nothing is sacred.”

Wendy Shalit

“Her heart was a secret garden, and the walls were very high.”

William Goldman