It was Sojourner Truth who said, “If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!” Hearing this quotation both inspires and pales in the face of thousands of years’ worth of Christian tradition. Women’s ministry doesn’t often focus on reconciling women back to women. Instead, it encourages women often to assume a place in a male-dominated church, one that often doesn’t feel as if it has much room for our growth. When it comes to female reconciliation, how do you help your sister heal? What does that look like for the female Christian minister?
Adam, Eve, and a fall
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel. (Genesis 3:15, NIV)
We hear a lot about Eve: the good, the bad, and the very bad. Most of it could fall in the “very bad” category. After all, Eve seemed to have it all: she had a man who was perfect, she never had to worry that he was going to look at another woman or have an affair, and they lived in paradise. In keeping with what we know about Adam and Eve, Eve fell hard because she spent time listening to the devil.
Together, Adam and Eve wanted more. They had it all, and it still wasn’t enough because Satan planted a little bug that something else was out there. As a result, they pursued that thing unto death…all because they listened to the devil. We hear a lot about Eve’s relationship to Adam as a result, and the consequences therein. If we aren’t careful, we can begin to believe that only male/female relationships were affected by sin. If we believe that, we can also believe only male/female relationships find redemption in Christ.
The realities of sin
All of humanity was affected by sin: men and women, men and men, women and women, and other gender combinations, as well. Women who walk in sin have enmity not toward the serpent, as is a part of prophecy, but toward one another. We joke about television shows like The Jerry Springer Show where women fight each other over a guy who definitely wasn’t worth the battle. We all remember junior high and high school and how girls fell around one guy…that they all wanted…and then hated the girl that got him. Now as adults, we fight over men as shamelessly as we did back then. Our first posture is to fight other women, treating boys better than girls, and turning our backs on women who deal with issues such as rape or sexual abuse.
When we don’t help our sister heal
In Christ, we have healing redemptive power available, one sister in the Lord to the other. Christ calls us to step back in love, rather than competition. We like to pretend we don’t compete in church, but we all know better.
Maybe our methods of sabotage, jealousy, and envy are a little more sophisticated now. Now we call ourselves “ministers” and try to defame one another’s ministries online. Sometimes we even do this when we are clearly wrong, but we don’t want to deal with that. We put one another down: the woman who doesn’t have as much money and can’t dress the way we think she should. The woman who struggles with her teenage children. We don’t support the woman whose husband doesn’t support her ministerial call from God, even though she’s trying her best to obey God. We criticize the woman who made choices in her life that were less than stellar…when we ourselves made the same decisions at some point, too. Putting down a battered woman is easier than understanding her situation is more complicated than it seems.
We make fun of other people’s styles and tastes. Gossip and backbiting are favorite pastimes when nobody is looking. We decide who is called and who isn’t by who tickles our ears the most. Too many of us abhor correction, decency, and order like a group of screaming, badgering cats. We manipulate, lie, cheat, steal – anything to get what we want – and now we just do it in the Name of Christ.
Division as the result of sin
One of the greatest consequences of sin is the division of God’s women, one to another. We still haven’t turned to crush the enemy’s head…we’re too busy crushing one another. The serpent knows exactly what he does. He has transferred the hatred we are to have for him toward one another. We’re too busy being jealous and envious to realize that if we step back, we all have that promise to crush the enemy, not each other.
In Christ, God has given women a great promise: He has placed enmity between us and the devil. Women, by nature, know how to fight the enemy because in the promise of enmity is the promise of the seed to come. It’s spiritual, and it’s natural: it’s the promise to carry and deliver the Word to come. But we are fighting the wrong enemy! My sister in Christ should not behave as my enemy, and I should not behave as hers. Rather, we should fight Satan together. This is a powerful way you can help your sister heal.
Women as types of the church
Why does it matter? Because the church herself is female. The church is not spoken of as being male, and we, as the women of God, are called to prepare her for the return of Christ. There are many reasons as to why the church is female and why that is relevant, all of which we can’t discuss here. (I recommend you check out my book, The Divine Feminine: A Treatise on the Female in Christian Spirituality.) What we will look at is the fact that if the church is female, this means every woman carries within her a type of the church – a type of that beauty, that promise, that power – the holding of the Word in grace, glory, and dignity. Women in ministry are especially called to be carriers of this promise.
The reason why women in ministry are fought so hard – by men, by other women, by one another – is because Satan wants to keep us all a mess. He pulls his same trick from the garden. Eve separated from God. He divided Eve from her sense of self, understanding, and promise. Eve separated from Adam, and Adam from God. So now he divides His women from one another so he can remain in control. If we remain in this total mess, the church won’t get its needed restoration. If women get where they need to be in God, the world will change.
Fighting the wrong enemy
As long as we fight each other, we don’t fight the enemy. God calls us to stop fighting over men, position, and competing with one another. We can’t rightly say, “Here I am, Lord” if we are too busy fighting everyone else. We’re here for this transformation, this power, this empowerment that comes only through the Holy Spirit as we stand on our spiritual authority.
We are women called to turn the world back right again. Let’s heed the call to do the same in our churches. We must be agents who love our sister enough to help her heal, desire to see her well again. To forgive, to stand as an agent of peace, to crucify the flesh. I want to see the women of God advance, but to do that, you must be willing to help your sister heal. So, we stop the nonsense and stop allowing the enemy to use us to cause division, animosity, hatred, and discord. Stop fighting your sister and fight the real powers that be so that all God has promised to you can be yours.
Pray for your sister’s healing
Whenever you read this, pray for a woman of God that you know. Pray for her strength and her success. Ask God to bless her and shower over her life. Ask the Lord to heal your heart of animosity you may have toward your sister in the Lord. Let Him show you some way you can encourage a sister on today and do it. Be an encouragement, an agent of hope and help, and an inspiration. Help your sister heal: be a solution, not a complication, to her problems. Most of all, love your sister….and show her. Put on your best pair of demon-stomping shoes together and step on his head.
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