Dear Sister,
So you’ve decided not to participate in what we call church anymore. I’m sure you have reasons, and I’m guessing at least one of them is how you were treated because you are female.
Photo by Aleksandar Kurešević on Unsplash
Depending on what kind of church you attended in the past, your pain could range anywhere from feeling “less than” because women are forbidden to be elders to suffering full-on abuse in various forms.
No matter where you land on that gamut, your pain matters. I’m so sorry you were treated as less valuable than your brothers in Christ.
Maybe you didn’t even notice the soup you were swimming in until something caught your attention. You looked around and wondered why men are centered and women are sidelined in church.
You realized that, in our society, you could potentially become the President of the United States—but in church, you aren’t allowed to speak from behind the pulpit.
And you wondered what is wrong with that picture.
Maybe you heard God’s call to leadership, but when you tried to obey that call, you were met with a condescending explanation of why you must have heard incorrectly.
You grew tired of having your head bump up against an invisible glass ceiling.
Or perhaps God put an “acceptable” ministry on your heart, and you worked hard at it, serving others and building something beautiful until it became so successful that it was taken from you and given to a man.
Maybe you got tired of hearing mostly about male heroes in the Bible, and if the women are mentioned at all, it’s to paint them as temptresses and troublemakers.
Or you noticed women aren’t included at the decision-making table, which means their voices aren’t heard and their opinions not valued.
Maybe you did speak up about a problem you perceived, but no one took you seriously—or worse, they made you the problem.
Perhaps you heard countless sermons about “God’s beautiful design” of male headship and female submission, and you recognized it for the hollow-sounding euphemism that it is.
Can I tell you something you probably need to hear?
It wasn’t God saying those things to you.
It wasn’t God forcing you to be small. It wasn’t his Word commanding you to “joyfully submit” to a hierarchy Jesus demolished when he set up his kingdom.
God does not call it “beautiful” when his daughters are diminished.
God sees you. He knows who you are. He knows what he created you for.
There’s a story in the Bible about a woman named Hagar, a slave to Abram’s wife Sarai. After Hagar’s son is born, Sarai mistreats her and Hagar runs away into the wilderness.
But she doesn’t perish there.
The angel of the Lord comes to her and promises her God will greatly multiply her offspring because he has heard her cry of affliction.
So she named the Lord who spoke to her: “You are El-roi,” for she said, “In this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?” (Genesis 16:13).
Sister, do you know who you are?
You are Hagar.
In your pain, you ran into the wilderness, not knowing what your future would look like. But God sees you. He has not abandoned you in the desert.
He hears your cry of affliction—and he gives you the promise you need for your future.
On this journey of yours, if you will allow me the privilege, I would love to come alongside you to encourage you.
I write about what God’s Word really says about women, the incredible things women in the Bible accomplished, and the flaws in a theology that wants to shrink women.
I’m not trying to get you to come back to church. I just want you to know how God feels about you. I want you to know he’s not the one who made you want to run away.
Did you know Hagar is the first person in Scripture to name the Lord?
She realized God saw her first, which made it possible for her to see him.
The Lord sees you, my sister. May you see him, too.
