I grew up taught how to be a lady. As a girl, being a lady meant you couldn't talk to loudly or have bad table manners. I remember sitting in the backseat of our minivan asking my mom why only boys could ask girls out on dates, and why I had to wear a dress when I went to church.
Ladies couldn't preach, pray, or read Scripture aloud in my church. Ladies discouraged from holding jobs and attending graduate school. Ladies were told not to wear anything that loud to offend men. Ladies had to be nice.
Childhood taught me one thing about being a lady. Being a lady was boring. And I knew I didn't want to be boring.
I was taught that women didn't really have voices. It's not that women couldn't say things, but that they didn't have voices. Women were the ones who had strongly held opinions in the Church, but they had to wait for a man to express them. Women could only say their prayers silently in their heart, while men got to say them aloud. Women could only wait for a later time to ask a question, while men could ask them immediatley.
I didn't really understand why women couldn't do these things, but I heard it had something to do with Eve eating an apple in the garden first or something like that. Nothing made sense for a long time.
Imagine my mother's shock when at eight years old, I told her I wanted to speak behind the pulpit at Church. That was the year I had memorized several psalms and wanted to say them to my church. To this day I have no idea how it happened, but someone pulled some strings to get me behind the pulpit.
The Sunday I was going to speak was the Sunday a missionary was going to deliver a message. I remember that I liked the missionary because he was old and nice and gave me candy. But I was nervous for my own mini message; especially because I was the very first girl to ever speak behind our baptist pulpit, and I didn't want to screw it up.
When my moment arrived, I had to stand on the kid's stool we put under the water fountain just so everyone could see my head over our pulpit. I started to shake. But then I remembered, in a small childlike way, that God was my Father, and that if God wanted me to share something behind the pulpit I wasn't going to argue. After I was done, I felt like a cloud had been lifted, and I could finally breathe.
Then the missionary walked up to the podium with a gloomy look on his face. For a moment I wonder if I had done something wrong, maybe something horrible like reading from the wrong version. Maybe he was mad that I read out of the Holy Scriptures instead of one of the little boys. The man leaned into the microphone and said something I will never forget, and it still impacts me as a young adult.
"I thank God for this little girl had the courage to do something that most grown men in here could not. If there is anyone here who thinks she should be silenced, we should be ashamed of ourselves."
I sat on the back row and silently wept. That was the day I found my voice.
Girls, hear me out for a second. Being a lady is not about waiting around for men to do obey God and calling it patience. Being a lady is not about constantly acquiescing to men and calling it being a helpmeet. If you want to be a lady, it's time to be bold.
If I could share one historical figure to every girl I knew, I think it would be Irena Sendler (also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Polish). Irena Sendler was a Polish Catholic social worker during the Holocaust who saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out into the Warsaw Ghetto and by providing them with safe homes outside the Ghetto. She was finally caught by German soldiers who brutally beat her, breaking her arms and legs and imprisoning her without food and water. Sendler was the only person who ended up alive out of the rescuing group, and died naturally in 2008.
Irena was famous for saying, "I still carry the marks on my body of what those 'German supermen' did to me then. I was sentenced to death...Let me continue to stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes...The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs that I did so little."
Right before her death, Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She lost to Al Gore, who won for a slide show on Global Warming.
Unlike boys, girls are not born with their voice; we have to journey to discover them. But it's not just about women here. Until women find their voice, men can't really be real men. I find that most men who have any ounce of character and passion usually have women behind them doing the same thing.
I wish the Church would finally realize that you don't produce good men by raising up weak women.
For once in your life, give yourself permission to have a voice.
For once in your life, be bold enough to do the right thing just because it's the right thing.
For once in your life, do more than play nice.
For once in your life girls, be who you were born to be.
Ladies couldn't preach, pray, or read Scripture aloud in my church. Ladies discouraged from holding jobs and attending graduate school. Ladies were told not to wear anything that loud to offend men. Ladies had to be nice.
Childhood taught me one thing about being a lady. Being a lady was boring. And I knew I didn't want to be boring.
I was taught that women didn't really have voices. It's not that women couldn't say things, but that they didn't have voices. Women were the ones who had strongly held opinions in the Church, but they had to wait for a man to express them. Women could only say their prayers silently in their heart, while men got to say them aloud. Women could only wait for a later time to ask a question, while men could ask them immediatley.
I didn't really understand why women couldn't do these things, but I heard it had something to do with Eve eating an apple in the garden first or something like that. Nothing made sense for a long time.
Imagine my mother's shock when at eight years old, I told her I wanted to speak behind the pulpit at Church. That was the year I had memorized several psalms and wanted to say them to my church. To this day I have no idea how it happened, but someone pulled some strings to get me behind the pulpit.
The Sunday I was going to speak was the Sunday a missionary was going to deliver a message. I remember that I liked the missionary because he was old and nice and gave me candy. But I was nervous for my own mini message; especially because I was the very first girl to ever speak behind our baptist pulpit, and I didn't want to screw it up.
When my moment arrived, I had to stand on the kid's stool we put under the water fountain just so everyone could see my head over our pulpit. I started to shake. But then I remembered, in a small childlike way, that God was my Father, and that if God wanted me to share something behind the pulpit I wasn't going to argue. After I was done, I felt like a cloud had been lifted, and I could finally breathe.
Then the missionary walked up to the podium with a gloomy look on his face. For a moment I wonder if I had done something wrong, maybe something horrible like reading from the wrong version. Maybe he was mad that I read out of the Holy Scriptures instead of one of the little boys. The man leaned into the microphone and said something I will never forget, and it still impacts me as a young adult.
"I thank God for this little girl had the courage to do something that most grown men in here could not. If there is anyone here who thinks she should be silenced, we should be ashamed of ourselves."
I sat on the back row and silently wept. That was the day I found my voice.
Girls, hear me out for a second. Being a lady is not about waiting around for men to do obey God and calling it patience. Being a lady is not about constantly acquiescing to men and calling it being a helpmeet. If you want to be a lady, it's time to be bold.
If I could share one historical figure to every girl I knew, I think it would be Irena Sendler (also referred to as Irena Sendlerowa in Polish). Irena Sendler was a Polish Catholic social worker during the Holocaust who saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out into the Warsaw Ghetto and by providing them with safe homes outside the Ghetto. She was finally caught by German soldiers who brutally beat her, breaking her arms and legs and imprisoning her without food and water. Sendler was the only person who ended up alive out of the rescuing group, and died naturally in 2008.
Irena was famous for saying, "I still carry the marks on my body of what those 'German supermen' did to me then. I was sentenced to death...Let me continue to stress most emphatically that we who were rescuing children are not some kind of heroes...The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs that I did so little."
Right before her death, Irena Sendler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She lost to Al Gore, who won for a slide show on Global Warming.
Unlike boys, girls are not born with their voice; we have to journey to discover them. But it's not just about women here. Until women find their voice, men can't really be real men. I find that most men who have any ounce of character and passion usually have women behind them doing the same thing.
I wish the Church would finally realize that you don't produce good men by raising up weak women.
For once in your life, give yourself permission to have a voice.
For once in your life, be bold enough to do the right thing just because it's the right thing.
For once in your life, do more than play nice.
For once in your life girls, be who you were born to be.
love it :)
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