Moms Matter

by Sarah Van Diest @SarahVanDiest

There are important issues coming forward these days. People are being brave, saying what needs to be said, and doing what needs to be done. On my mind today: Beth Moore talking about the treatment of women in Christian ministry. 

Beth Moore holds a position of notoriety most of us never will, male or female. Her reach is far and wide. Her southern drawl is recognized around the world, as is her determination and dedication to studying the Word of God. Regardless of your alignment with her biblical persuasions, most can see she is a woman of fortitude, strength and intelligence; yet disrespect based solely on her gender is something she has experienced and endured. Aside from the role she plays as a mother herself, what does motherhood have to do with her trials?

Without pointing fingers at anyone specific, it is easy to picture what Beth Moore has described (you can read her powerful letter here). We can see a man, with authority given him by his church, addressing her in ways that reveal his “less-than” perspective of her. The image may be all too clear for some of us. You may be a woman who has been in her shoes, or if honest, you may be a man who has been in his. 

Each of the men who has committed the act of prejudice against a woman based solely on her gender had a mother. Each man had, on some level, the opportunity to learn what it is to honor a woman or to degrade her. A mother’s job in part is to teach her children that women are to be treated as ones who bear the imago dei. There is no cause for her children to grow up believing that women are to be subjugated or held down, or any such thing. But, and I cannot stress this enough, this may not be easy.If her husband, the father of their children, and others in this interpersonal arena, do not help in this mission, it is very difficult for her children to understand where truth resides. 

If this struggling woman is you, do not give up. It is more than your life and your freedom you fight for, though of tremendous worth, it is the world view and lifetime perspective of your children for which you also strive. It is your job, as much as you are able, to teach your children yourworth and value. In that lesson, they will learn that women are to be treated with honor and respect, and they will also learn what their own worth and value is, as well. That great truth will influence how they treat all women in their lives. 

I know this truth because I’ve lived it. I do not speak of this often or publicly, but I will risk this much today because this isn’t about me. This is about you and your children. This is about our future as a people. I have lived through the pain of being treated as if I had very little value, and I thought it was my job to “take it,” that a humble Christian woman should endure ill treatment and forgive over and again with no consequences for the assailant. But then I saw what lesson my sons were learning. I saw what I was teaching them in my acquiescence. I was teaching them that this woman, whom they called “Mommy,” was of such insignificant worth and value that nothing should be done to help her. I was teaching them that I didn’t matter. I was teaching them how women are to be treated. 

The day my four year old stood up in protection of me was one of the best and worst of my life. I knew at that moment that it wasn’t too late, that my son still greatly valued me, but I also knew something had to change. A four year old’s job is not to defend his mother, so I learned how to stand. 

The men who put Beth Moore down may not have had mothers who were able to stand, who did not believe that they couldstand, or these may be men who chose to ignore the imago dei emblem stamped on the women who bore them. We do not know. But what we can know is each and every human being has great worth and value. Teaching that lesson to our children is honoring the One who created humanity.

Take a moment and look at your world today. If you are a mom, do you recognize your own worth? Do you see the emblem God has stamped on you? Do you teach your children to value you? Do you teach them to value their father? Themselves? Or as a man, do you also recognize your worth and value? Do you see the blessing you are as a created one? Do you teach your children to value you, their mother, and themselves? 

Be deliberate today. Call out the beautiful truth of what God made to your children. Let it be clear to the world that we all matter. And today especially, that…

Moms matter.

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Educated as a teacher, Sarah taught school for nearly 20 years. As a young woman, she lived in China amid the rice paddies and water buffalo near Changsha, and then later taught English in Costa Rica for four years and raised her two sons.

Sarah is married for the second time, the mother of 2 boys and the step-mother to 3 more. She and her husband, David, work together in their agency The Van Diest Literary Agency. Her full name is Sarah Ruth Gerke Van Diest. She’s 5’5” and cuts her hair when stress overtakes her.

She is a freelance editor (including a New York Times and USA Today bestseller), blogger (The Write Conversation) and writer for hire. Her first book releases with NavPress in 2018. 

http://christianliteraryagency.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sarah.gerkevandiest

https://twitter.com/SarahVanDiest

God in the Dark

by Sarah Van Diest

Life’s painful trials can bring shame about our inadequate and broken faith. There is relief in hearing the expressions of desperation in the psalmist’s voice. He didn’t experience this life perfected, and we don’t either. But the psalmist was loved. So are we.

God was so kind to give us the Psalms.

To walk through darkened days is part of the human experience. To walk through them with faith, comfort, strength, joy, and hope is part of the divine experience. Our eyes, though, are often clouded to those blessings by the thing oppressing us. When we remember and recognize our Father’s faithfulness, when we see reality with the eyes of understanding, the darkness ebbs and the light of hope grows. The impossible, unbearable, and unthinkable becomes the hidden passageway to truth, hope, and joy in Christ