Why Wonder Woman Must Die #MondayBlogs

by Katrina Dierking

Christian. Wife. Mother. Daughter. Sister. Friend. Author. Leader. Firefighter. Paramedic. Homeschooler.

The hats I wear topple sometimes. I wear most of them at once, balancing them and rearranging them according to priority.  I imagine most of us are the same. As wives and/or mothers, many of us work outside the home and those of us who don't are up to our eyeballs in errands, chores, internal and external commitments. We spin in circles taking care of everyone else – always putting ourselves last. Putting our dreams and passions on the back burner to do everything else we do.

Who told us we had to have it all – to do it all? Who convinced us that without all these hats, our lives are incomplete? When did we buy into this lie? How long will we allow it to continue? What will be the breaking point before we face facts – Wonder Woman must die.

“A study at the University of London showed that subjects who multitasked while performing cognitive tasks experienced significant IQ drops. In fact, the IQ drops were similar to what you see in individuals who skip a night of sleep or who smoke marijuana.”

Think about that for a minute. While we wear our hats and juggle all our tasks, we are as effective as if we were smoking marijuana. When we do so many things, every thing we do suffers. Nothing gets our full attention.  This leads me to believe: You and I weren't called to be Wonder Woman.

So if you weren't called to be Wonder Woman, what IS your calling? What were you created to be? It's different for us all but we must find our passion and give everything we have to do that passion. Not that we can't have more than one but we shouldn't strive to have it all.

For me, I was working 24-36 hours at a time as a Paramedic, trying to be a wife, a mom (to 3 teens and a 3 year old), and all the things I listed above. My house was falling apart. I was too exhausted to spend time with any of my children or my husband, I hadn't attended church in months. Everything was suffering as my cape flapped in the wind. I hadn't even touched on my passion – writing fiction as well as non-fiction to help women overcome abuse and find their potential.

I had a choice to make. I had to choose my priorities. How ironic that my passion is to help women reach their potential yet there I was burning the candle at both ends and in the middle without ever finding time for my passion. My health began to crumble and nothing was getting done.

I left work and never looked back. I spend every day with my precious 3 year old and now live my passion – helping women find hope and healing while moving toward their passion. I put away my cape and in doing so, I can finally be the woman God created me to be.

So I  ask you – what is your passion? What are you giving up in order to do everything else? What have you been called to do and what is standing in your way? Less is more and Wonder Woman must die. In order for you and I to be the women we were created to be, we must bury the notion that we must do it all to have it all. I'm not saying you can't have a career and a family. I am saying – if you aren't following your passion and living your calling, you aren't where you are meant to be and everything is suffering.

I am in the process of putting together a book/ workbook/ and online University for women who are lost in transit trying to find their true selves. If you'd be interested in knowing more, be sure to sign up for my newsletter at www.KLDierking.com . Until then, hang up the cape. Take a deep breath. Take a look around and put your priorities in place. Ask yourself – who am I? Why am I here? What am I meant to do? Then take steps to be the woman you were created to be and believe it or not – it isn't Wonder Woman.

photo credit: Wonder Woman, London Super Comic Con via photopin (license)
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You don’t have to go home… #MondayBlogs

by Katrina Dierking

“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

How many of us have heard this line before? Perhaps as a young adult out on the town during a well-warned night of socializing, after hours of spilling it all to the bartender or the bar stool next to you. Or perhaps at the hairdressers after telling your stylist your latest saga. Either way, we’ve all been there. The lights go out, the smoke clears or the hair dryer is silenced. The music is but a distant memory of background noise and they are escorting you out the door. Keys in hand, they prepare to empty the place and you are the last to go.

“You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” they say. But where do you go when home isn’t so cozy? Where do you go when the phone line is dead and you can’t ‘phone a friend’, when there’s no place to hang your hat and clicking your heels together gets you nowhere? Where do you go?

Mary was probably a beautiful young lady. But home never held an address for her. To be sure, her bags were always packed and ready for quick escape. Her face held many lines of regret and multiple potholes of mistakes. She was on her own. Independent – some might call it in present day. In her day, she was an outcast. The town’s people judged her as she crossed the street. The elders of the church whispered as she slipped through the allies. As the sun faded on each stormy day, where was she to go? Certainly she could muster a smile of pretense. One that said, “I have made it this far alone and I don’t need you or anyone else”. Still at the end of the day, she found no Ruby slippers to bring her peace.

So this day could not have been a surprise for her. Certainly she had it marked on the calendar as a possibility of happenings. The town’s people had finally caught her red handed doing what she did best – prostituting. Multiple men – married men. They might as well have placed a big red  'A' on her chest – they intended to. As they drug her through the streets to give her what she long deserved, they called Jesus to witness. Mary had no family to back her. No one to call on in her time of need. There was no public defender or 2:00 a.m. friend she could count on. In fact, she could count on one hand all her closest friends and still have a hand full on nothing.

There she lay on the ground face down in the dirt. Certainly where she belonged in their eyes. Each one took a stone in hand prepared to give the sentence to the fullest extent of the law. There was silence as Jesus bent down to draw in the sand. What was He doing playing in the dirt at a time such as this? “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone” He said to the “jury” of the town. Silence remained.

As Mary crawled, broken and bruised, to the feet of Jesus, He held out a hand to help her stand. Surely, this was the first moment anyone had offered a hand up. With eyes of regret she faced her judge. “Look around you. Where are your accusers?” He asked the battered soul. As the two stood alone in a place that once held a court room, He said, “go and sin no more.”

~ ~ ~ 

Are we so busy being righteous that we forget to be compassionate? Have we forgotten how to love? Certainly we must call sin what it is – wrong. But in doing so, we must also remember, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

In my upcoming novel, Hopeless Tap Water, the most “righteous” members of a small dying church turn on each other as their darkest secrets are revealed. It takes “the least of these” to remind them of God's grace and mercy” but will it be too late?

Check out www.IamKLDierking.com for updates on my new novel.



photo credit: day 044. via photopin (license)
Girl Who Reads is an Amazon advertising affiliate; a small commission is earned when purchases are made at Amazon using any Amazon links on this site. Thank you for supporting Girl Who Reads.