.png)
“She remembered who she was and the game changed!”
–Lalah Deliah
Today is such a special day. A day HIStory was made because HERstory was written. Today we celebrate International Women’s Day in recognition of the many achievements and historical progress we as women have made, globally.
It’s the strength, dignity, poise, power and presence of woman that electrifies rooms, shifts environments, and gracefully empowers nations. Women have endured years, decades and even generations of silence and solitude because we were gifted with mouths but had no voice. We were endowed with feet but could not STAND on and up for ourselves. Overlooked, mistreated and not granted advances because our gender made us of a lesser class with unequal opportunities to succeed. We have truly endured and suffered much. Nonetheless, I am soooo happy that we have dispelled this notion that women should be classed differently and should not be considered when there is male influence involved. I am elated that Women have found and our unafraid to flex their inner power, speak their truth and make their presence felt in rooms to encourage and invoke change.
Today, we rise on the shoulders of women who have gone before us and paved the way for our voices to now be heard. Women who have paved the way and made it easy for us to be assured that the feet we have were meant to stand on and up for what we believe in. Women have learnt through the ages that it is really not what you’ve been given but really about what you create. Shifting and making progressing strides in many male dominated environments, we continue to watch women emerge from the ashes and tell their story. Women came, women saw and are still conquering in their spheres of influence.
The architects of society, adding color and beauty in all facets of life, within a woman lies the ability to create, nurture and transform not only lives, but also nations. Smashing glass ceilings and breaking out of boxes of limitations have endowed woman with the courage to rise above their pain and progress in places of purpose. No longer will we be silenced and cower at the sounds of injustice. No longer will we allow life to pass us on by without challenging the status quo and forcing developments that can be shifted in our favor. We are Woman and Yes, we know its our Superpower. No longer will women be satisfied with the crumbs leftover from the man’s table. We rise from the kitchens and because we always knew how to bake our own bread, we courageously serve loaves of purpose, intentionality and wisdom to a world starving from clear direction. We position ourselves through education to advance to the highest peeks in our tiers. We sit in leading roles. We make the hard decisions and we are not afraid to change the rules of the game. We are WOMEN, unapologetically. We are built strong because we were created to nurture and bring forth life. Our strength is as deep as the ocean and our reach expands beyond the horizon. With elegant beauty, we adorn ourselves to compliment the men that we stand by and no longer under. WE are WOMEN, unashamedly.
Maya Angelou penned it perfectly in her poem, Phenomenal Woman because it certainly is “in the reach of our arms, the span of our hips, the stride of our steps, and the curl of our lips”. So many amazing qualities and features we possess that make us women, phenomenally. We were hand crafted by the Creator not to be a beauty only to behold but to be the beautiful change in the world needs. We have grown and built solid foundations from the bricks that were thrown at us, in past generations. The power and influence that lies within us, has been framed by our ability to draw strength from trouble, smile through our pain, bounce back after we have been knocked down and blaze trails where there seems to not even be a clear path.
The world craves for strong, powerful women to continue to shape our future. “Strong women who will lift and build others, who will love and be loved. Women who live bravely, both tender and fierce. Women of indomitable will” – Amy Tenney
Let’s continue to raise women of virtue, poise and purpose. Fill the pages of your story with tenacious, ground breaking strides that will continue to strengthen the pages of history with resolves of HERstory. Your story is far from finished, keep writing.
Here’s to STRONG women. May we KNOW them, may we BE them, may we RAISE them.
