PSA: Strong Women aren’t Broken Women.

Growing up complementarian is an interesting thing. From an early age, I was used to the idea that men and women were equal in value, but not equal in authority. It was everywhere in the Christian circles I moved in. Women were empowered to function only within certain “submitted” confines. Hey, some degree of empowerment is better than what many fundamentalist Christian women get, but still, I grew up knowing there wasn’t so much a glass ceiling, but a big fat Bible you’d get swatted down with if you rose “too far.” 

While I can’t remember if the complementarian “value vs authority” trope was ever said explicitly from the pulpit (by my pastor/father), it was spelled out a million ways in anecdotes and examples. To my sisters and I, he spoke the language of empowerment, while also educating me that I’d need to lay down my ministry to support my husband, and teaching me that love was expressed through submission. I read between those lines and learned I would do best if I made my opinions, intellect and even talent inferior to that of the menfolk around me. Also around me were examples of “good Christian womanhood” – submissive, diminutive women who deferred to their husbands or pastors on everything. Meanwhile, the men got to lead and achieve even if their aptitude was inferior to that of their lady friends.

I don’t blame my Dad at all. I think he was doing his best. I  also don’t think there were any better examples at the time he commenced ministry in the late 1980’s. That sense of inequality was cultural in the church and outside of it.  My mother was part of a sort of transitional generation. Her mother had been a stay home mum with no expectation to work. I’m (so far) her only daughter to marry and have kids. I don’t have the option to be a stay home mum. Life and economics have changed greatly in the last two generations. This is our reality now.

But here’s the kicker: I don’t want to be a stay home mum. The economic reality has changed but so have the expectations of women when it comes to fulfillment and contribution. I like to think. I am good at my job (as a research blogger and ghostwriter). If you ask me my opinion, I will lay it out for you. If you don’t ask me my opinion, then don’t expect me to sit on the sidelines of the conversation like an inferior wallflower. If Mamma K has something to say, you’ll hear it. That doesn’t make me out of step with my husband, or God, or out of line in general. It just makes me, me.

I remember when I first started stepping up into my call and being at peace with my brain and my place in the world, I was growing in confidence and thinking “Yeah! I love this.” That confidence had taken me 32 years and a lot of therapy to attain. But life was finally feeling good. Then an older, (well-intentioned) Christian woman placed a sympathetic hand on my arm and gave me a book on womens inner healing.

To her, the two were correlated. To me, a young woman just popping her head up out of the trauma and aftermath of a bad church experience, it was a fair whack. If I hadn’t have pulled that exchange apart with my husband pretty quickly, it could have been a “get back in your box” kind of a moment. It could have been a moment where the internalised patriarchy of another complementarian woman effectively chopped me off at the knees.

I’m a big girl. I wear my big girl panties with pride now. But not every young Christian woman has the ability to stand up to these systems. Not every young Christian woman has a husband (I know, irony) who says “Screw the patriarchy, baby, you be who you are meant to be.” Its for those women that I write.

The world is quickly adapting to women’s empowerment. In my observation, churches aren’t necessarily adapting so fast. Sadly, complementarian doctrine ensures, in many cases, that this inequity can’t be put right.

Inside my own experience, and when I hear stories of women like me, I often hear a familiar tale: outspoken women in complementarian Christian circles are often criticized and even shamed. Strength, if not expressed in stoic silence, is interpreted as a problem. But friend, we are not broken, just outspoken. We aren’t Jezebels. We aren’t speaking out because we are damaged and insecure or unsubmitted. We speak because we are valuable, insightful, and we have something to offer. That is a very good thing.

Even if a woman is speaking out of a place of damage, the correct response (I believe) is to respond to her with love and compassion that empowers her to rise above circumstances and grow beyond the reaches of her damage. It is never to put her back in her box.

I’ve been called a Jezebel in the past. It was horrible. It put on me a sense of shame, a belief that I couldn’t trust my own mind or emotions because I was under the influence of a demon. Can you imagine that? Knowing your thoughts are kindly motivated, well-thought-out and valid even if they weren’t, only to be told its potentially demonic? The effect this can have on a woman is immense. For many years, it was for me. I’ll freely admit this made me angry and frustrated. I’m a Kristen Bell kind of a girl. She once said that if she’s not in between 3 and 7 on the emotional scale, she’s in tears. I cheered when I heard that. Because that’s me. I cried out of frustration often and as soon as I did, I was often told I was too emotional and not thinking straight.

I was thinking straight. That was why I was crying.

Tears don’t mean weakness. They aren’t shameful. They don’t mean you are no longer capable of rational thought. They mean expression. They mean passion. They mean what you are talking about invokes a deeply personal response in you. This is good. Fine. Normal for a lot of people. It took me a long time to be free to realize that, and the moment I did, I cried less.

I’m so not alone. There are thousands of women like me: strong and smart because God made us that way, silenced because the church isn’t ready for this but determined to find our way out of these woods if not for our own empowerment then for the empowerment of our daughters. I’m lucky that, in adulthood, I found a husband who freed me of that internalised sense of patriarchy, and a church that empowers women. I am forever thankful for that (while also seeing the irony of a man being the one who helped me shake off the patriarchy). As a blogger, I am seeing a familiar message from my readers a bit too often: women are too often told their passion and opinions come from a place of brokenness that makes them untrustworthy, that their strength means they are unsubmitted, or that they can’t lead because they aren’t men.

Not Broken. Just Outspoken

I’ll never forget this particular church group that visited some years ago. I’d felt uncomfortable with their style and theology, so I’d been a bit standoffish, I’ll admit that. But the ministers took this to mean that I was broken somehow. At one point, a member of the team came up to me, grabbed my hand, and tearfully told me I was beautiful. I politely thanked her. She cried more and said it again. I again thanked her and said, “its nothing to cry about.” (I’m no Heidi Klum, but I also have a lot of faith in my cheekbones, you know).

It was like they tagged me as a problem. Another tried prophesying over me, but the prophecy didn’t ring any bells at all. Not a single stirring or moment of resonance. I listened politely but when this person asked me if that made sense, I very nicely said: “I’m sure you are hearing from God, it’s just for someone else I think.”

I wasn’t accepting a prophecy that didn’t sit right. I believe that words have power, so a wrong prophecy is a bad thing. At the end of the weekend, my husband said: “We should go let these people pray for us, even if we don’t really like them.” We wanted to be seen to do the right thing. You know, pastors’ daughter and son-in-law and all that. That’s when the kicker happened. One of the guys in the group came and prayed for my husband. Over him, they prophesied wealth, prosperity, influence and success. I stood holding his hand, clearly his wife, clearly happy about it. There was obviously no animosity between the two of us.

Then the minister prophesied over me: I was unsubmitted. I was out of line with my husband. I needed to submit or God would not be able to use me. On it went. I zoned out.

Why tell this story? Because its time we stop treating women as the lesser ones. Its time we stopped disrespecting their boundaries or their agency over themselves. Its time we stopped assuming the word of God comes through men because they are better and through women only when there are no good men available. It’s time we shake off this culture of disempowerment that means even women treat eachother like strength is a problem sometimes.

Let women in the church be who they are meant to be and make no assumptions about the limitations of that. Let them function. Because history shows a rich tapestry of womanhood: Miriam, Deborah, Ruth, Naomi, Junia, Pheobe, Euodia, Syntyche, Lydia, Dorcas, Mary, Elizabeth, then in post-Bible years the Kathryn Kuhlmans, Amy Semple-McPhersons, Elizabeth Eliots and Rachel Held Evans’s of the world – they show us the power of the feminine when it works in partnership with the divine. That list is finite unlike the possibilities of women who inhabit their strength in service of their creator

Femininity is divine. It is also evolving and that is okay.

I don’t know why I am telling this story and sharing this post this week. Maybe one of my readers needs to hear it. Maybe several of you do. Maybe its in reaction to things I see in the world, be it politics, current affairs, church life or even “the twitters.” I don’t know.

But I’d like to share a little reminder. God made mankind in their image (the image of the triune God). Male and female He made them. Perhaps no scripture could have been more complex to translate. But how can you make woman in your image if you aren’t feminine too? When Moses asked of God’s name, God responded “I Am.”

Women are made in the image of God just like men are. Women can be strong, smart, intuitive, submitted, leaders, quiet, loud, passionate, clinical, teary, tearless. Whatever it is, thats okay. I dream of a day when church leaders around the world aren’t scared of womens tears, talent, intellect or opinions.

We can be outspoken. It doesn’t mean we are broken.

Okay thats all!
Have a good day! I’ll be back next week with someone more intellectual (probably). In the meantime, go follow my socials! Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. (More YouTube content coming soon)

Peace.

Kit K

PSA: Feelings Don’t Lie. Thoughts Do.

Hola! So the other day, I popped a post up about Mental Health Awareness Day – a day I was unaware of. #irony! (It was on my Facebook and Insta pages, so if you haven’t followed them – do that!) But in response to this, I’ve had some lovely contact and it got me thinking – there’s something we need to clear up.

I don’t know about anyone else, but something I’ve heard preached a lot is that you can’t trust your feelings – that they lie. But that’s not exactly true.

Its an important topic, because in my opinion modern Christianity can have a bit of a mixed-up relationship with human emotion. We can try to suppress so-called negative emotions and only focus on the good ones like ‘faith, hope and love’. Feelings like sadness, unease, grief or anger can be swept under the rug with a big broom called “Just trust God and move on.”

But is God really asking that of us? Everything God made was made for a reason. Even things I don’t like (like spiders, for example. They are actually there as an important part of a balanced ecosystem, even if they are a part of the ecosystem that makes me want to KILL IT WITH FIRE. *Sigh*)

Case in point: God made the limbic system and the other structures in the brain that govern human emotion.Therefore its good. It helps us manage life and interact with it. Shutting off emotion can shut off pleasure, stop us from processing pain, and even dull us to things we should feel strongly about. We can’t choose to shut of some emotion and not others. Thats unhealthy…(and maybe a bit weird if our emotional range is either “happy” or “disconnected.”)

All through scripture, we see human emotion. God never shied away from it or tried to shut it down.

• In Ephesians 4, we are told to be angry but sin not. This tells us there are some things we should feel righteous anger towards, and that anger is a completely normal part of a Christian’s range of emotion. Jesus himself showed anger when the temple had been turned into “a den of thieves” in His words.

• Jesus was moved with compassion multiple times in scripture. Compassion comes from sympathy, empathy and the desire to alleviate someone else’s suffering. But before we feel compassion we have to acknowledge suffering. We have to feel something about it.

• King David, prolific Psalmist, felt all the feels – anger, sadness, fear, grief, love, joy, etc etc etc. None of them were wrong. In fact, they got a pretty big chunk of the Bible dedicated to them. David was called “a man after God’s own heart.” That’s something. An emotional guy captured the heart of God in a unique way, a way that endeared him.

• Song of Solomon deals with another emotion – sexual desire, and erotic love. So thats an emotion too – one the church can be scared of, but not one God ever wanted us to shut down – keep in check, sure. But not shut down.

Here’s what I’ve learned from listening to and reading up on psychology and how the brain works: feelings don’t lie. Thoughts can be distorted, but feelings are feelings. They are what they are. They’re not lying. What matters is how (or that) we process them.

What do I mean? If you are feeling sad, then you are feeling sad. That’s not a lie. You aren’t actually feeling happy. That is true. It’s the same for whichever emotion you are feeling: anger, pride, joy, happiness, grief, whatever. Emotions don’t lie. They can look like other emotions within reason (ie. Grief can look like anger, or rather anger is part of grief) but for the most part, emotions are what they are.

The place where things can go awry is in the area of what we think. If we make decisions based on emotions, that is called emotional reasoning. If we see the world through the lens of emotion, that is emotional reasoning and that can be faulty. I.e. “I’m feeling like an outcast, so that person must hate me.” It might not be true. But its not the feeling that’s wrong, its the thought that’s distorted.

The other problem is when we feel an emotion but sweep it under the rug and don’t process it. Emotion is there for a reason, its there to help us interact with life and heal if something happens to us or a loved one that was unpleasant. If you don’t feel it, you can’t process it.

I’m so tired of the narrative that feelings are lying and can’t be trusted. No! Friend! Your feelings are there for a reason. Listen to them. Lean in to them. The only way out of grief/anger/sadness is through it. Avoiding it doesn’t help. It just bottles up and ferments until its ready to explode, or worse, cause you to self-destruct. Just feel the feels, friend.

Our thoughts are where we sometimes need help and there is no shame in that. Faulty thinking (cognitive distortion if you like the technical term) is a thing . But emotions never lie. They are what they are. There’s no harm in giving them the space they need. If you get stuck in a rut of sadness or grief that you can’t move out of, you might need a little help. But that is completely okay. Sometimes life is tough and we need to share that load. Sometimes life is great and we should be able to share that joy. Again – emotion – a good thing.

Here’s my approach these days: feel the feels then think the thoughts and make decisions. Emotions, thoughts and decisions are all part of the process of life and all equally as important. But don’t ignore your gut instinct. Not even if someone tells you to. Your gut instinct is often, so very often, right on the money.

But thats a whole other topic thats a whole lot more scientific than this blog will ever be!

JUUUUST saying.

Anyway! Thats todays thought bubble. If you want to read more on the brain, emotions and limbic system, check this out 

If not, check back in next time to read my next piece that I’m a bit excited about.

Over and out

Kit K

“Just Choose Joy!” Um. No.

This post might be a bit of a rant. I'm okay with that. It might have very few scriptures to back up the stream of consciousness. I'm also okay with that. After all, I'm not a pastor or a theologian. I'm a Christian who is exploring faith, turning it over, turning it inside out, and examining all the different ways the light can refract. 

I have an issue that I want to throw a little light on myself. This week I listened to a new song by a band I just love. And it well and truly pissed me off. The song was titled "Joy." Its catchy. Its not untrue. But it sends a message I think can be a little harmful, because it is so often repeated in churches across the globe and it can create unhealthy pressure.

The opening scene in the video clip showed two news anchors covering a mega-storm that was devastating the nation. One anchor was presenting the negative side of the story. The other was frustrated that she couldn't find the upside. Spoiler alert: the one who was trying to find the brighter note was the 'right' one. Because he was choosing joy.

Fair point. Learning to choose joy is a good thing. Learning to have faith in God when the situation seems dire is wonderful as it can take the lid off the pressure cooker of life. If you can choose joy, then you should. Good for you.

But for heavens sake (pun not intended), if there's a mega-storm coming at you, threatening to level everything around you, you don't have to be happy about it. If you are happy about it, I'm really worried. Or suspicious that you have a dishonestly inflated insurance policy and you're getting a windfall out of hurricane whatever.

Negative emotions are ok. They are fine. God made them. They shouldn't be what we build our lives on, but they are an essential part of the process of life. If we can't embrace the full spectrum of human emotion, if we only allow ourselves to express "Christian" emotions of peace and joy, then we almost guarantee the other God-designed emotions will become bottled, fermented, and explosive. I remember when I was young, my mum used to make non-alcoholic ginger beer. It was relatively uneventful until one batch fermented too far and blew up. You should have seen the mess. Wow. It covered everything in the shed.

It's a decent picture of what can happen when we deny ourselves the honesty of sadness, anger, grief etc. you know, when we just choose joy. Those other emotions become all-encompassing. They then have the potential to derail things.

If you are going through a mega-storm in your life, don't feel pressured to feel joy.

Grieve, if you have faced loss. God made grief. He turned His head away when His son was crucified. He couldn't look. I think He felt grief then.

Be angry, if you have been wronged. Didn't God invent anger too? Didn't Jesus express anger in the temple? Didn't God tell us "be angry but sin not?" The emotion is not the sin, friends. Keying your ex-boyfriends car, or rage-spending on a credit card that doesn't belong to you is the sin. (Insert a million other possible examples)

Be sad, if you are facing sadness. Didn't the Bible give us enough examples of God feeling sadness when he looked at the human race? Why do we lump these emotions in a basket marked "Bad?" They're human. And given the fact that God is no stranger to these emotions, I'd even say they're divine.

I refuse to use the term "negative emotion" any more. Emotions are necessary for us to process life. But if you want a key to peace, and indeed joy, then the trick is to let God in the troughs with you. Don't force yourself to always appear is if you are on the peak. He sees all your grief/anger/sadness already. Why not let Him share it?

I kinda blame the faith movement for this maladaptive approach to human emotion. There were a lot of good things about the faith movement, but this one stinks. You don't have to be up all the time. Gosh! Even God isn't.

I've been a little curious looking around churches and seeing a lot of depressed and anxious people. I don't know what the statistics are for the church globally, but I suspect that in some cases, our statistics on depression and anxiety could actually be worse than the unchurched world. Why?

I have a theory (Okay... a few). One of them is that we think Christianity demands perfection of us, and perfection means faultless emotional "upness". But my goodness that is so inauthentic.

In the last couple of years, I've given up faultless emotional upness. I'm happier than I ever was. I used to think, like a lot of Christians think, that we need to let our light shine constantly so a dark world can see and be drawn to our faith.

But newsflash. Candles flicker. Stars twinkle...in that things get in the way of their light so they are momentarily more dull. Clouds get in the way of the sun. The only light sources that are constant and unwavering are artificial.

Lets not be artificial. It hurts us. It makes us inauthentic. It makes others wary of what we are hiding.

You don't have to choose joy all the time. Sometimes you need to choose a good cry, a session with the punching bag, or a journaling session when you pour out your broken heart. Do this, and joy will be easier the next day, or the day after that. Do whatever helps you process the hurt and then you'll be able to find the sunny side again in time.

Just saying.

I hope joy is always easy for you. If it isn't, you are in good company, friend. Jesus, most of the world, and me are right there with you.

Cheers

Kit K