Last night my husband and I were watching Mona Lisa Smile, a movie which tells the story of upper class women attending a prestigious women’s only university in the 1950s who face the challenge of choosing between being a wife/mother and a fulfilling career post-college. The professor in the movie challenges these women to consider both options, but many wind up choosing the path of wife/mother at the expense of a profession. The path of wife/mother seems to be glorified above a meaningful professional purpose.
One of the young women came to the conclusion that she wouldn’t regret not going to law school, but rather not having her own family so she chose to get married. Another young woman who gets married early while she’s still in school ends up having a failed marriage within just a few years, and the professor’s lessons deeply touch her as she graduates and moves on towards an independent life post-divorce as an editorialist.
After watching the movie, my conclusion is that there is no one path to a fruitful happy life, but rather only the path that you want and most desire, and that God leads you towards. For some that will be a career, for others it will be as a wife and mother, and for many it will be both a career and being a wife/mother – maybe at the same time or maybe at different times.
God calls women to be fruitful in so many different ways throughout their life. Keep your heart open.
Only we can answer with God’s help, the fruitful path that He is calling us to. There is no right answer that fits all of us women, rather, just the right answer for you.
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