Erin, a man that has only known our little clan of women for a few days walks up to our living space. We have our sleeping pads in a circle with our heads towards each other because lately, we have only felt valued and safe when we are with each other. He asks to speak to us and this is what he says:
“I want to say I am sorry. I know you have experience so much sexism throughout your race, and I don’t want you to walk away from this year with that in your heart. I am a dad of daughters, and it makes me emotional. I didn’t like hearing what you’ve been through and then I realized that I did the thing that I just said shouldn’t happen. We didn’t invite you with us but we invited Todd. We left you out, and I need to repent. I don’t want you to be treated that way, and I am sorry.”
There are two things I am guaranteed to find in every single country: 1-that I will be treated differently in a negative way because I am a woman and 2- that God will show up. I knew I would write this in month one, but I hoped I would be proved wrong. I haven’t been.
God loves women. We weren’t an afterthought for him. He knew we would be made the entire time. He didn’t wait to create women because He hadn’t thought we weren’t needed. He waited until Adam realized something was missing. There was such a special purpose to be carried out through women that God needed to make sure they would be cared for and valued. So he waited. He waited until Adam went through every single creature and found that he was still lacking. He waited until He could entrust Adam with Eve.
Jesus loves women. The only testimony that he said would be told along with the good news of his life, death, and resurrection was that of a woman. She did something that no one but Jesus understood. Despite the put-downs and oppression she faced, she stepped out in the calling of her life and was rewarded by being seen, loved, and valued by Jesus. He time and time again spoke, healed, and trusted the women. They were not second class citizens to him. He was there when we were created. He saw what the devil and the world had done to something he saw as so important and while he fixed our eternities, he showed us how women were meant to be treated.
And here we are, thousands of years later, spitting on the work that Jesus did, throwing dirt on a creation that God took such specific care to make. My squad is majority women. I have only traveled with groups of women, and yet we are seen as weak, as nothing more than hands to cook, people to be married off, asses to be catcalled. The world says it’s fine. We are just women. Right?
No. That’s not right. Women are the embodiment of a part of God that is not found in any other creation in the world. We are a physical example of the Holy Spirit. We are the discernment, the healing power, the love, the servant, the power of perseverance, the emotions, the heartbeat of God, and the physical example of being available everywhere all the time.
Perhaps the reason that even in the church, where women should be valued but are being shut up and pushed aside, is because that is what they have done to the Holy Spirit.
The physical represents the spiritual. We want the gifts and abilities and benefits of women without giving them the authority or freedom to move how they want to. That sounds like how the Holy Spirit is treated. We want healing, we want power, we want His benefits and blessings, but we don’t want to give him the authority in our lives to work through us however he wants.
I have been put down and mistreated a lot on this race. I’ve had more men than I can count say things to me that put me on the level of cattle. I’ve had rules and regulations about my dress, the times I can speak, where and where I can’t go, how to look at others, and it’s all because I’m a woman.
In places and with people who don’t give me rules, they’ve subtly still oppressed me. Speaking only to men, not listening, saying I am incomplete until I am married, or excluding me because I am a creation of God that doesn’t look like them. My voice has been shut down, and I’ve walked through many countries with so much to give but no one wanting it.
But like I said, God shows up. He whispers to his daughters, “I love you. You are mine. You are important. Don’t give up.” He brings in men like Erin, who see what has happened to us and says, no, you don’t deserve that. God opens up conversations and continually speaks through us. He protects us and gives us a bravery that stems from his power. He gives us forgiving hearts and patience to know that our men are blinded by the lies they have been fed and the tactics of the enemy.
I have watched our women not lose faith and continue to fight to be used by God. I have watched women not stoop down to fighting and demanding respect, but trusting in God’s timing. I have watched our women step up and seize the moments. I have watched the women of the world wait patiently to be seen and work with what they’ve been given. I have watched women speak life and hope into their daughters.
God’s princesses have been covered and thrown in the dirt generation after generation. No country is exempt. And yet, he has put the Holy Spirit inside of us to give us the strength to stand up, clean ourselves off, and lean into the power of God’s love. My prayer is that at least God’s people will see us the way God sees us. It’s time.
