Tag: faith

Stories of Women in the Bible are Anchors of Truth About Women’s Dignity and Worth

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. 

In the face of empire worship, we turn ours to Jesus.

Lately I’ve been wondering,
What do we do?

As we sit and watch little self-appointed kings perch upon their thrones of power.
Adorned in molten crowns, traces of the golden calves thrown at their feet still visible to those who have eyes to see.
Calves erected by the very ones who taught us to be on guard against false prophets and heed warnings of old.

Those who have ears… let him hear. 

Hear the little kings spout hate with the promise of destruction.
Death and decay celebrated in the name of empire.
Juxtaposing our call to celebrate Renewal and Resurrection – The Living Promise – made possible by self-sacrificial love.

So.much.opposition.
To The Humble King’s way.

So what do we do?

When there are lunches to pack and permission slips to sign.
Dogs to walk and dinners to make.

How do we rage?

We, who do not subscribe to this idea that power is king.
We, who are not used to the feeling of wanting to rage?

We are told to abide in Him…
So, we’ll try. 

To abide in Him who is reflected in the faces of all. 

We decorate tambourines before the Red Sea parts,
believing in the promise of an already and not yet Kingdom of rejoicing.

We laugh hard with neighbors around the table,
the Imageo Dei in us, communing with the Imageo Dei in them. 

We fill up the home and paint each other’s nails,
recalling how He washed their feet all those years ago.

We snuggle our babies and love them lavishly,
doing our best to model how to invite in, and love freely.

We marvel, with wonder and awe, at the moon put in the vast vast sky.
Collectively feeling the childlike hope and joy of being a part of something good, something big, something cosmic.

We turn our eyes and ears to what is pure, what is lovely, what is true.
And do our best to point others that way as well.

The way of the One who is continuously creating new life,
to point His beloveds back to Him.
Because of love. 
For Love. 

It’s what we can strive to do in the face of empire worship – 
Fix our eyes on Jesus.

And love His people so well,
they might see Him in us too. 

Legacy of Love

The doctors said you weren’t going to come home.

1 in 10 chance, they said.

Lungs are just too full, body is just too frail.

Is your will updated?

Have you said all you need to your sweetheart of 65+ years?

My mom had to ask you, had to be sure.

Your daughter, wondering if her dad would be around for Christmas.

 

Why are you crying, Mama? 

My kids wanted to know.

I told them I probably wouldn’t get to see my Grandad again.

They prayed for you to get better and for Grandmom to not be too sad.

We facetimed to say goodbye after the kids went to bed.

You joked about how you were doing, and asked about our lives in the Lonestar state.

We hung up and said hopefully to each other, He seems ok?

 

I woke up throughout the night to check my phone.

Would we be going to Colorado earlier than we planned?

Wearing black instead of festive red and green?

Christmas is your favorite, I think.

Always has been.

The family all gathered to celebrate His birth.

 

Skits and stockings.

Cookies and chaos.

Sometimes snow, and sometimes sun.

Always games and always laughter.

Legacy of love strengthening year after year.

Would you be here to see it this time?

We didn’t know. 

 

Lungs are clear!

Surgery went well!

He’s going home on Monday!

Christmas is on Thursday!

 

You beat the odds.

Stubborn will and onery genes keeping you this side of the now and not yet.

Would it have been the same if Christmas wasn’t so close?

If you hadn’t had a trove full of memories and a quiver full of people bolstering you afloat?

Science says, maybe not.

We weren’t meant to be alone, our bodies know as well as our minds.

You sat in your worn in brown recliner, watching us tear into gifts you and grandmom painstakingly wrapped.

We filled your living room with laughter and chaos once again.

Our kids bringing to mind the years we were young.

Throwing stuff down the laundry chute.

Banging too loud on the organ.

Four generations under your roof.

 

You smiled with tears in your eyes as you told us going to your grandparents’ house for Christmas held some of your favorite memories.

Keep gathering, kids – you said, as we sat round.

Families like ours are rare, you stressed.

We nodded because we know.

 

We know because some of our favorite childhood memories were made in your house at Christmas.

Not because the food was so good (although it was).

Not because the presents were plentiful (even though they were).

Not because California kids loved the snow (but we sure did).

It’s because your house and the people in it were familiar.

Familiar in the way that allows for belly laughs and goofy pictures to abound.

Familiar in the way that brought forth long nights around dominoes and basement shenanigans.

Familiar in the way that let us know we were part of something that exceeded state lines and time passed.

 

Warmth infused with care.

Laughs infused with love.

Family.

Not perfect by any means but tied together by knowledge that we are loved.

You and grandmom built this legacy of love, founded on Love Himself.

And boy, am I glad you were around this Christmas to see how we are all trying to continue that legacy.