On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. A certain woman named Lydia, a worshiper of God, was listening to us; she was from the city of Thyatira and a dealer in purple cloth. The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was said by Paul. When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.” And she prevailed upon us. Acts 16
This post is in honor of women who have left their fingerprints on our hearts; shaped our lives; and helped our hearts sing. The women who said to me, "You should consider being a minister." The women who said, "This is good...keep going deeper and further." The women who have prayed for me and with me. The first woman I visited in the nursing home who shared stories of sipping sodas on Main Street; living through the Depression; breaking through glass ceilings; and gave me butterscotch hard candy. Women, like my wife, who patiently listens and persistently loves me back to my full self. Women like my daughter, whose passion and enthusiasm for life I admire so much. Like Paul, I have been supported and sustained by women. Like Paul, I know what it is like to receive care and compassion from God's image in female form.
For churches that deny and diminish the role of women thinking it is Scriptural, I offer you Acts 16. For churches that want to control women, I ask you to read seriously Acts 16.
For a world that is quick to objectify women and turns a blind eye at our overtly sexual ways society views women, I want to shout Acts 16.
Lydia is our shero!!
We should all wear purple every Sunday in her honor.
We should all shout and speak out that after two thousand years, it has been long enough of treating women as second class citizens.
We should all join Paul in blazing another path.
Lydia was independent business woman. She owned her own home; dealt in purple fabric (where she would rub elbows with the rich and famous) and she was faithful to go down to the river to pray as well as open enough to God's still speaking voice.
Lydia is our shero!!
She shows us that the earliest followers of the way were open to God in all the forms God comes to us in the flesh and breath and bone.
Lydia is our shero!!
May this story sing to your heart, challenge your understandings, and cause you to live differently this day and especially in such a time as this. God's grace and peace which is found in Lydia and so many sheroes in our lives today. Thanks be to God!!
Blessings
.jpg)
Dear Pastor Wes, Thank you for your post. After reading your post, I began my mediation with thanksgiving and gratitude for my mother who died on June 28th. She was a wonderful model for me and for all who knew her. My mother, Gregoria was married at a very young age, even before she completed her high school education. She and my father were very much in love so because of the war they travelled from Reno, Nevada to Aberdeen proving grounds in Maryland. She was a bright young women and became a secretary for an Army General. After three years of married life I was born on the army grounds. Her and dad then moved from Pittsburgh to Alliance, Ohio where the four of us children grew up. She took college classes and became an outstanding piano and organ teacher, who won many awards. She became the president of the musician's guild. Also she was a very faithful Christian women and taught Sunday School and played piano and organ in her Lutheran Church. My mother was kind, thoughtful and a beautiful person inside and out; but even more she had perseverance to succeed and she did it with grace. I thank God for the gift God gave to us for 92 years. Thank you pastor for your thoughtful gift of words. Blessings
ReplyDelete