WOMAN

Genesis 2:19 So GOD formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name.

Hippopotamus. Platypus. Rhinoceros.

Orangutan. Elephant. Lemur.

Dog. Cat. Goat.

Fly.

Genesis 2:20 The Man named the cattle, named the birds of the air, named the wild animals; but he didn't find a suitable companion.

Cow. Salamander. Zebra. Not one he called Friend.

Genesis 2:21 GOD put the Man into a deep sleep. As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. 22GOD then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man.

This one God named. Woman, he called her.

She was His final creation. The finishing touch on a masterpiece. What was missing. The world was not complete and neither was Man until she arrived.

Genesis 2:23 "Finally! Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!"

And man said, "Wow! This is good! Really really good! She's more beautiful than Peacock, more graceful than Eagle, better conversation than Monkey. She's perfect. I don't ever want her to leave. I can't believe I ever lived without her. I must have been living half as much."

Genesis 2:24Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and embraces his wife. They become one flesh. 25The two of them, the Man and his Wife, were naked, but they felt no shame.

One. Not by paper or principality.

Naked. She stands bare before him, untainted by corrosive self-doubt injected by magazines and peers. She has no peer. She has no ideal. She is pleased because her Maker is, confident and prized because she is His.

Then flesh rests against flesh. Relaxed. Valued. Belonging. What was separate, housed in two bodies, joins. The depths of two souls woven together in an instant. No shame. No lonely. No distance.

Day and night, waters and skies, birds and cattle. All of this was incomplete without man and man was incomplete without her. And she is so treasured and essential that God couldn't pull His pen through even one book of His epic without her flowing from His heart and onto the page. There she is on the pedestal of Adam's adoration and God's provision.

Before model's measured her and husbands forsook her. Before companies passed over her and children fatigued her. Before magazines dieted her and age bent her. Before religion veiled her and preachers silenced her. Before governments controlled her and fathers ignored her. Before the world fell and rose only to stumble for eons as a crippled amnesiac unable to recall her worth - she was Woman. Friend. Lover. Beautiful. Valuable. Essential. Completion. The final brushstroke on God's canvas.

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