Introduction

The Woman Beneath the Cape

Wonder Woman 1:  Monica the Magnificent

Here I come to save the day!

The alarm cut through the air like an amplified bugle call.  Monica sat up in bed and reached for the appropriate button.  The clock had delivered more than a simple wake-up call; it was the start of another mission.  In her mind she could hear music.  It sounded like a combination of the theme song to Mission Impossible and the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah.  Fully awake now, she bounded out of bed and headed for the shower.  She was grateful that some companies had finally wised up and combined shampoo and conditioner in the same bottle, for she certainly didn’t have time to do both.  Her hair was cut in such a fashion that with a simple flip of the head it fell into a neat, shining bob.  She sprayed her face with the new foundation in a can, applied a touch of blush and lip gloss, slipped into her suit, cape, and boots, and headed for the kitchen.

As she squeezed fresh orange juice and prepared bacon, eggs, and waffles for her husband and two children, she pressed play on the CD player above the stove and a warm, comforting voice began to read a passage from the Bible.  At the end of the third Psalm, the voice moved to the New Testament and delivered the Sermon on the Mount with compassion and conviction.  Two hymns later, it was time to wake the children.

Hannah and Peter bowed their heads and prayed before complimenting their mother on such a delicious and nutritious breakfast.

“Good morning, Light-of-my-life!” Simon said as he kissed his wife on the cheek.  “What’s on your schedule today?”

“Well, after I take the children to school,” Monica said, “I’m meeting Gloria for coffee.  She is having a few problems in her m-a-r-r-i-a-g-e.  Then I volunteered to take lunch to two of the shut-ins in the church.  After that, I’ll collect the dry cleaning, shop for groceries, and pick up the children from school.  I’ve invited your boss and his wife and three children over for supper.”

“What a woman you are,” Simon said, running his hands through Monica’s clean, shining bob.  “How do you do it all?”

Wonder Woman 2:  Olivia the Overwhelmed

Does anyone know what day it is?

The alarm cut through the air like chalk on a dry board.  Olivia reached over and pressed the snooze button of grace that gave her five more minutes.  She pressed it one more time, then again until she became aware of the fact that her son was standing at the foot of the bed, yelling.

“Mom, we’re late.  That’s two tardy slips this week!”

She jumped out of bed, swirled some mouthwash around her gums, and pulled on the faded warm-up suit that was lying on the floor.

“Wake your sister!” she called after her son.

Olivia ran past her husband who was stretching out his bad back and headed for the kitchen.  Grabbing two toaster pastries from an open box on the counter she threw them into her purse and began the daily hunt for her car keys.

“Has anyone seen my keys?” she cried at the top of her lungs.

“The dog had them last night,” her daughter said.  “He hid them in the pizza box.”

Olivia rummaged through the trash until she found her keys, well ensconced in a cold slice of pepperoni pizza.

“Kids, in the car―now!” she cried.

As she sped down the road, little pieces of cheese flew up from her key ring and stuck to her glasses.

“Kate, did you ever consider removing my keys from the pizza box before they had officially set?” she asked.  But her daughter paid no attention, lost in the private world her MP3 player offered her each morning.

Olivia passed the cold pastries back to her children.

“We’ve missed chapel, Mom . . . again,” her son said.

Cape and Boots or Crumpled Suit?

Do you identify with one of these women?  Are you the kind of woman who has her routine down pat―you’re organized, on top of things, a multitasker?  Or are you more like Olivia, running behind time, hair barely combed, yelling at the kids to get in the care because you are late again?

I have been both women. I lived for several years in the cape-and-boots role, determined to show God and the world that no matter what the problem was, I was only a bugle call away.  I have also been Olivia―when all I wanted to do was pull the covers over my head and pray that a bus would run over the bugle, and the world would go away and leave me alone.  I used to be Sheila the Magnificent, and then I became Sheila the Depressed until God showed me the role that He had created for me, Sheila the Wonderfully Made.

. . .

It’s my prayer that in this book, through the Word of God and the stories of other women, we will be able to go right back to the very foundation stones of our lives and rebuild who we are based on what God has told us.

Remember the words of David the psalmist:

For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them. ―Psalm 139:13-16 (NKJV)

I don’t think that God calls any of us to be Wonder Woman, but He does want us to know that He has made us wonderful! . . . I trust that as we walk through the following chapters together, we will be able to identify where we have picked up wrong information and exchange that for the life of purpose and wonder that God calls us to.  If you are worn out from trying to get it all right, or if you have lost hope of ever getting anything right, my prayer for you is that God will give you a new vision and a new sense of purpose.

At the end of each chapter, there will be an invitation to a moment of reflection.  I call it A Look in the Mirror.  We live in such a fast-paced world that offers little opportunity to stop and breathe for a moment.  Even reading books can turn into one more task on our to-do list.  I want this book to impact where you are, right now.  I don’t want you to miss one thing that God might have for you.

Then there will be what I call A Closet Prayer.  I use the imagery of a closet because that is the place where we often try to hide from God the things we are ashamed for Him to see.  This prayer will be an opportunity to bring anything that has been uncovered by the Holy Spirit to your Father.

So let’s have one big garage sale for all the capes and boots and begin!