I have a small complex. It’s this:

I’ve always thought men’s discussions more interesting than women’s. I don’t know why, because I do love to hear about my domestic friends’ gardens and kitchens and babies. Honestly. But generally, men have these controlled, under-stated turns of phrase that hold my attention and make me laugh.

I don’t know what to do about this complex, but I’m putting it out there because I suspect that I’m not alone in it. There are some of us who want to live as full and rich lives as possible without denying our feminine design of nurturing and supporting. We want to think in addition to make dinner.

How can a young woman become a thinking woman? A sweet friend asked me this last week, and it was fun to think/talk/discuss it for a little bit instead of compare pudding recipes. (I’m all for cooking good food but not if it becomes pride or one’s life focus.)

These are some of my ramblings about it:

A woman who reads and thinks through and discusses ideas is a wise woman. She pursues wisdom, not intellect or logical men’s discussions. All of Proverbs urges her to call out for, search for, be turned toward wisdom. It’s a direction and shape of her life, not just words that she bats around.

My friend is a mother, and I’m single, and both of us need huge amounts of wisdom–probably she needs it even more than I because she’s needing to equip her children to live their stories well out of passionate love for Jesus, and she’s supporting and walking beside her husband in his life vision. She needs lots more inside her than knowing recipes for puddings and salads.

A couple weeks ago I was teaching a girls’ class, and we explored Proverbs 31. It’s a daunting chapter for women, especially when they aren’t even 20 years old yet. But we did a fun exercise with the text. At every verse, we wrote at least one character quality that describes the action in the verse–words that describe what the woman was inside more than what she did.

We found words like thrifty, active, cheerful, prepared. It made the description of the woman seem warm, human, inviting to be with.

What if Proverbs 31 is a personification of wisdom, and not describing a super-woman? If this is true, we could say that being cheerful, active, prepared is part of being wise.

Which means that every woman regardless of her giftings and life assignment can intently look for wisdom, watch around the corner for it, be prepared to take in whatever she can learn. God knew life would be too big for us and that we’d need help outside ourselves. James wrote the wonderful words that God invites us to ask Him for wisdom for life, and He won’t scold us for asking.

Maybe there aren’t enough thinking women because there aren’t enough of us who are humble and needy enough and desperate enough to ask God to give us wisdom, when all the time He’s waiting for us to ask so He can help us and share His character with us.

A woman who is a thinker is only a researcher and analyst until she becomes a woman who is amazed at her Jesus and wants to be like Him and asks Him constantly for His advice and to share His heart with her. This has to give a beautiful shape to her life, and make her a nurturing, attractive person.

Which might or might not include making pudding from scratch.

Related post: No Bird-Brained Women