In America?

I am really glad to live here in America. We have freedoms here that are unparalleled in other parts of the world. Don't get me wrong sometimes the greed and cosumerism we display on a daily basis embarasses me and I see us through the eyes of the rest of the world and well. We may have liberty and freedom but we have a few things to learn... That's not really what this is all about however.

I am currently re-reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini. (Author of "The Kite Runner.") I am re reading it bc I enjoyed it the first time and because I have yet to get to the library to check out a few more novels to see me through the days at my boring job. This book is about the plight of women in Afghanistan and the cultural norms that are in place which serve to make the lives of women harder. It's heroine who was born out of wedlock, is persecuted and considered "less than" because of her birth status. She is given in marriage by her insincere and absent father at the age of 15 to a 50 year old guy. And all that goes with married ... Her life is hard and she struggles through beatings, mistreatment and more than you can imagine.

And so I sit at my desk with nothing covering my head carrying my soon to be newborn daughter. Each of us two gals have an endless meadow of possiblities before us. I can still be or do whatever I want to be or do, do back to school for dietetics hopefully. And she can also live and grow, free and loved, with a father who doesn't send her away as an adolescent or treat her as anything less than a beautiful creation of God with the same rights as all the rest. I could have been born into anything, she could have been born into anything. If you are a women the same is true, if you are a man you could have been raised to believe truths about women which are quite different than the ones you currently hold. (which I hope are equalistic and biblical) Anyway, you weren't. I wasn't, and baby girl Penny won't have to experience it either. So today I am just thankful to be a woman in America. I am thankful for my husband, my education, and my upbringing. For my God, and I pray he is with those and shows himself to those who are so much less fortunate than I am.

So here's to pants, push-up bras, and the right to vote, and all the other (maybe more important :-) things we get to have as american women.