Motivation Monday - Why It’s Time to Take Your Place In The Story
“That is the truth that will encourage you to stand up, step out, speak up, and serve the world in only the way you can.
That is the truth that will encourage you to speak truth to power, in the right way, in the right time, in the right place.
”
In the past weeks, we have witnessed falls from grace by Christian leaders, both nationally and globally. The connecting thread between all of the incidents is that some time passed between transgressions and the illumination of truth.
I wish it was not true, but I find that even the bravest and strongest women have silenced their voice and carried burdens by themselves because to speak was too risky.
This phenomena is not just in relationship to situations of power imbalance, but related to the own devaluing of our place in the God narrative.
We self-silence for many reasons:
We believe that we were born to submit – either to men, to institutions, or those with more power, male or female.
We believe that inherently our lives have diminished value because we are women.
We believe in a functional identity – that our value is directly tied to our ability to please or perform solely for the acceptance of others, and to meet others’ needs.
We believe that the Psalm 139 declaration of being uniquely knit in our mother’s womb is a fairy tale rendered false once we have grow up into the under-valuing we experience from living in inequitable environments.
We have chosen to believe, like the world, the diminished narrative that being fearful and wonderless is the human norm, rather than embracing that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.
We believe that since others have used their power to silence our voices, we have no recourse but to acquiesce.
A history of experiencing inequity
has caused many of us to write ourselves out of the main plot of God’s story.
As a result,
We step back, instead of forward.
We downplay rather than own our birthright gifts.
We give our power away.
We feel others’ voices are more important than our own.
We fail to develop what God has seeded in us to carry, because we compare our gifts and position to others and come up lacking.
You cannot write yourself out of a story that Jesus has already written you into.
But you can lose yourself in the story
when you are,
forget that you have been given a voice and a vocation.
The truth is that from the first book of creation, women were written into the story – as ezer kenegdo – man’s equal match.
Following the narrative of the importance of women in the hinge moments of God’s story (moments that we have focused on the patriarchs exclusively), we see that Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary, were all instrumental in moving God’s story forward, not because they were the most likely (they were the least likely), but because they all said Yes to the invitation to step into the story, all at great risk. In fact, Jesus’ line was directly connected back to each one of these women’s bloodlines.
Hagar was not the first woman in the Bible to be seen by God when she was cast out into the desert. Every woman has been seen by God from Genesis to Revelation until now and into the future.
Don’t render yourself invisible when you have
already been seen.
You have been seen by God.
You have been known by God.
You have been loved by God.
And that is the truth you must believe.
That is the truth that will encourage you to stand up, step out, speak up, and serve the world in only the way you can.
That is the truth that will encourage you to speak truth to power, in the right way, in the right time, in the right place.
It’s time to take your place in the story. It’s time to become visible and fulfill your storyline, which has been bought for, paid for, redeemed by Jesus on the cross.
Jesus saw women, and loved them not in spite of who they are but because they were daughters of Abraham. Jesus commissioned women to fulfill their ordination as part of the God story from the beginning.
Now is not the time to believe that your voice does not matter, that you do not matter.
You do.
Future generations are counting on you to believe that.
May God grant you, through the breath of His Spirit through you, and His resurrection power in you, to rise in your womanhood. To come out of hiding. To find healing. To use your voice. To tell your story. To take your place in God’s story, and for His glory.
At Gather We:
Champion Truth - The truth of the personhood of Jesus
Christ and the proclamation of His word.
Challenge Inequity - Gender, Race and Class Inequity
And by doing this we hope that we will Change the Nation
and Change our World.
We champion without dividing.
We challenge without demanding.
We seek change by holding accountable without condemning.
I believe in you.
Cathie