Discover Your Identity and Worth
Adapted from The Confident Woman
Yet the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen [you] and set you on a firm foundation and guard you from the evil [one].
When a boy is growing up, he begins to realize that he is not like his mother, and he differentiates himself from her. His masculinity is defined by separation. He will normally seek his own identity and individuality. A girl does not feel this need and usually remains close to and dependent upon her mother.
About twice as many women as men experience depression, and about 70 percent of the mood-altering or anxiety-relieving drugs are taken by women. In her book Unfinished Business: Pressure Points in the Lives of Women, Maggie Scarf has suggested this reason:
Women are statistically more depressed because they have been taught to be more dependent and affection-seeking, and thus they rarely achieve an independent sense of self. A woman gives her highest priorities to pleasing others, being attractive to others, being cared for, and caring for others. Women receive ferocious training in a direction that leads away from thinking "What do I want?" and toward "What do they want?" They may be in danger of merely melting into the people around them and fail to realize they are an individual with rights and needs, and they need to establish independence.
Prayer of the Day: Lord, it is so easy to lose my sense of independence and get caught in totally depending upon others. Strengthen me and set me on Your firm foundation of freedom, amen.
