At the time, I chalked up the emotional flood to pregnancy. But lately, that story, a modern retelling of Hosea, has come back to me. And I’m realizing something.
It wasn’t the hormones.
It was the theology.
The story asks us to see a “promiscuous woman” as the symbol of humanity’s faithlessness. God is cast as the good man who redeems the unworthy bride. For years, I absorbed that narrative quietly. I let it shape how I saw myself. I was the one prone to wander, to betray, to be impure. I carried shame about my female ways that kept me doubting my intuition and distrusting my voice.
But I’m not that girl anymore.
When I look at that story through my eyes today, I see something different. I see a woman born into a world where she had zero legal rights. A woman whose survival likely depended on men’s decisions. A woman who would almost certainly have experienced sexual violence, not because she was sinful, but because the system was.
For me, in my heart, in my house, in my world, using her as a metaphor in this way does not feel like redeeming love.
And as our world churns with waves of horrific revelations about exploitation and trafficking, I cannot ignore the parallel. Women’s bodies used. Women’s stories silenced. Systems protected. Shame displaced.
If you feel angry, you are not crazy.
If your blood is boiling, you are not faithless.
If you’ve had enough, you are not a rebel, you are just alive.
We have been taught, subtly and overtly, to distrust ourselves. To call our clarity dramatic. To label our boundaries harsh. To name our anger sinful. But what if these experiences are simply our soul’s way of communicating a problem?
Last month, I gave the eulogy at my aunt’s funeral. I mentioned that had she been born in a different time, she would have been catapulted right into the Ivy League just like her brother. But she wasn’t. Women weren’t allowed. I saw a flash of offense in the audience when I said it.
But that is history. Those are the facts.
It wasn’t until 1974 that a woman could have a credit card in her own name. Mortgages required a male co-signer. And to own a business as a woman? Not until 1988.
We are not hysterical.
We are not ungrateful.
We are not faithless.
We are alive. Awake. Aware.
Happy National Women’s Month.
Here we are. Let’s honor those silenced, lost, left, gone by refusing to deny our voices and choices for one more minute.
Your power is welcome here. Your voice is beautiful here. You have so much to say now. This is our time.
You have everything you need inside you.
Your power is there.
The sacred is yours.
And you can always have this.
Listen, touch, trust, hold, believe.
It may be the beginning of peace.
And redemptive love.
