Confessions of a Church Girl: The Battle in My Heart

I just watched this brief message by Ashley Matthews on Gender Equality in the church. (I highly recommend as a launching point for rethinking what it means to support women, especially in church culture.)

Of all the things she said, what resonated most with me was that even AFTER empowerment minded men brought her “beside” them instead of “behind” them, she had an even bigger battle to face.

Even more difficult to overcome than the limiting structures and beliefs of her background, were the rules she’d internalized within herself that kept her from boldly living as preacher and leader.

I very much resonate.

I used to be uncertain whether a woman should even speak in front of a church congregation. I never saw a woman give a message at church until I was a teenager, and even then, I could sense the ripples of controversy. “Should she really be up there? What about those verses…?”

Then fast-forward about 15 years… I discovered that God was placing a message in my heart to share publicly. Unsure where to speak, I wrote the message anyway.

And God provided men and leaders in my own life who offered me encouragement in my gift and a microphone to preach at my own church. (Although I usually prefer to hide behind the neutral term “teach” as though semantics could solve the controversy.)

Some days I still don’t know what possessed them to let me teach at all. But speaking felt gloriously like being home after an exhausting road trip living out of suitcases and hotels. I was finally where I belonged.

But unusual opportunity brought an unexpected dilemma which I’ll refer to as “My Fair Lady” syndrome.

In the musical, “My Fair Lady,” (based on the book Pygmalion) Eliza Doolittle is a poor Cockney with no prospects of changing her social status. But Professor Henry Higgins, a phoneticist, makes a bet that he could take her off the street, teach her the diction and of the upper class, put her in just the right clothes and… ta da!…she could blend right into the higher social class.

The problem wasn’t that Henry failed…but that he succeeded. Once trained and exposed to the distinct etiquette and speech of upper class, Eliza found herself in no-man’s land. She wasn’t believable as a beggar anymore and couldn’t make a living that way. But neither did she have the connections necessary to actually flourish in the upper class.

She was stranded between her upbringing and her new experiences.

In a similar way, I’ve been given a chance to run with a gift that I never thought possible to dream about. And now, I don’t quite know what to do with it. I can’t pretend that speaking and teaching spiritual applications isn’t my passion- but my new experiences also reveal a drastic gap in where I am now, and where I would need to be to pursue this passion in earnest. I don’t even know where to begin.

People have asked me recently what I want to do…what would my dreams be if I could do anything? Yet even as my sense of freedom in my gift increases, my mental cage isn’t prepared to release me just yet.

Much like Mathews, when someone finally tells me to go and dream, I stand there frozen. Because for the longest I didn’t think I was supposed to have that dream. How do you switch from believing your passion might actually be dishonoring to God, to contemplating further training/seminary to pursue that gift? How do you fling wide the doors of possibility when you aren’t sure such possibility waits on the opposite side of the church doors you might seek?

When do you know if you actually WANT a ministry outside the church, or if you’re secretly SETTLING for that because you aren’t sure you can handle the climb? The mind battle rages.

So I appear indecisive. I always seem to be waiting for permission. I doubt myself and doubt whether the passion is from God.

I contemplate writing hate mail to Paul, despite the fact that he’s dead, asking him to clarify himself. (If you say there’s no male or female in Christ…what does that actually mean to you?)

I read about strong women like Deborah, Mary, Esther, Ruth, and the wife of Manoah and I wonder why they are sometimes treated as exceptions to the rule of God speaking to and through women.

I simultaneously feel frustrated at the way things are in the church and guilty for wrestling so much in the first place.

I ponder the way Jesus treated women. The way he seemed to breathe liberation wherever he went, whether people were chained by blindness, demons, or cultural oppression. And I ask Jesus to tell me what He would say to me about who I am and what He made me for.

Why am I telling you all this? I share it because I’m just raw enough to get it out right now, and maybe it will help you understand the larger struggle of women in the church.

Maybe you won’t even agree with me, but in some small way you’ll have a new compassion for women. Maybe as a father you’ll ask yourself what it would be like to grow up in church through your daughter’s eyes or your wife’s.

I’m asking you to understand that women are facing an internal battle you probably can’t see and that might not be part of your own church experience.

Maybe as Ashley Mathews says, you’ll stop asking if you simply believe in equality, and ask if you (and the churches you support) are practicing redemption and justice for women as God designed.

I cannot tell you how my heart brims full when church leaders have made me feel not only SEEN but that my opinion and gifts are VALUABLE. But now I see that is just the beginning of the work, not just for male leaders but for me.

I’m seeking my own redemptive work within myself, raking through the soil of my identity. I’m asking God to pull the weeds of my soul that didn’t originate with HIm, that threaten to crowd out the space and life He designed me for.

I’m choosing to believe that He is the only One who gets to put His liberating limits on me. I want to be able to trust God’s voice to me and possess the promises He gives without fear. It may be a grueling journey, but I’m praying that God gives me grace and strength to walk it in 2019.

What about you? Have you grown up with lies about who you are and how God sees you? What internal battle is keeping you from walking boldly and freely into the passions you believe God is putting on your heart?

What would it look like for you to step outside all the voices you’ve grown up with, long enough to hear the whisper of how God sees you?

May we work with God to ruthlessly uproot the enemy’s lies from our lives and replace them with the truth that calls us by our true name.