As a woman, the news is depressing. Actually, it often is. Reminders that no matter how far we’ve advanced as a society, it remains fact that women just are not as valued or protected as men. You can argue if you want, but current headlines and people in power serve as evidence.

Sometimes, as a woman, the church is depressing. Actually, it often is.  Reminders that no matter how much it is claimed that, “all are made in the image of God” women just aren’t as valued or protected as men. You can argue all you want, but get in a room full of women and ask how many have felt like second class citizens inside a local church. 🙋🏻‍♀️

I’ve been reading a book with a group of women, about women in the Bible and their place in the salvation story that is Jesus.  We meet Tuesday nights and chat about Genesis and ask deep questions and silly questions and hope out loud that we will get to keep eating our favorite foods in the New Earth. Our conversations have felt like thinly-veiled places of hope and healing and light. Because we are being reminded that despite what the news or even the church says about women and our place in the world – God reveals how truly loved and wanted we are to Him, and how needed we are to his Kingdom work.

As a woman, these stories of how women are woven into Yahweh’s story of redemption, renewal, and love are essential.  Not just essential to the coming of Jesus on Earth and furthering his message in the years after his death and resurrection, but essential to us now. These stories are anchors of truth countering the darkness of lies about women’s dignity and worth in the world.

As a woman, I will ground myself in these stories of truth and hope.  I will study Eve in the Old Testament, see how she was known and loved by Yahweh, and was used in the full circle promise as “Mother of all living.”  I will return to the gospels over and over and be reminded that Jesus demonstrated to his group of 12 men (and probably several women) followers that women are worth healing, listening to, and sending out as messengers of his love.  Jesus put himself between women and harm, both physical and emotional, over and over and over. Standing up to bullies with rocks, to Pharisees with judgment in their hearts, to cultural norms at a well, and even to his own disciple who scoffed at an act of sacrificial love in the form of spilled perfume he could never begin to fathom. Jesus valued women and saw them as God intended, co-regents, commissioned to usher in His Kingdom here on Earth.

The creator of all things known and unknown entrusted a woman to birth, nurture, empower, and send this very Savior into the world to start his Earthly mission of restoring all things. The lies of the world, and the actions of sinful humans will not convince me that He has stopped trusting women to continue His work now. As a woman, these stories and truths are the hope I cling to and in which I can rejoice. Knowing with full confidence that I, my daughters, and all the other women of God’s great world are looked upon with the utmost respect, valued beyond measure, and loved without bounds by the One who fashioned us in His image. Not just as daughters of the king, but as co-heirs and faith filled hands and feet helping to usher in the Kingdom.