Dear traumatized one, I pray you float
Was there grief in that ark? Yes! Was there tension? Absolutely. And anger. And fear. So many emotions; such great loss. Yet through it all, they were upheld.
Was there grief in that ark? Yes! Was there tension? Absolutely. And anger. And fear. So many emotions; such great loss. Yet through it all, they were upheld.
Some illusionists fool us to amuse us. Abusers and abusive systems fool us to control us. Freedom and life hinge on seeing the illusionists we have not seen.
Once, in Malachi, God may have said that he hates divorce. Repeatedly, in Jeremiah, God reveals how much he hates divorcing. Repeatedly, he laments the nonstop betrayals that did, and could, bring him to do it.
If you have been betrayed by a spouse: The God who sees you has been there. He hates treachery. He calls out the treacherous - and he defends the betrayed.
“She cannot say that!” the woman yelled. Half a world from my home, she forbade me to invite the churched to repent. Then, we watched the Lord break through.
It’s so enticing, and so much a part of the US evangelical church culture. Yet the lure of celebrity can deceive us into agreeing with much that is not God.
“Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak.” The meaning of that quote from 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is obvious, right? God silences women, and the inspired apostle Paul affirmed it. Or maybe, just maybe: The Lord and Paul both snort at the idea – and we have not known it.
The greetings in Paul’s New Testament letters – the ones translators have altered and we often bypass – affirm women, as well as men, who minister as true servant leaders.
What has, for centuries, hidden the presence of women alongside men in the New Testament, and especially in Paul’s letters? Where have all the women gone?
You pursue truth differently when you're desperate, when your life hinges on what you find – and your spirit is released to resonate with the Spirit of God.