Resurrection – in this Body

Dear Reader, I want to encourage you to believe your 'calling' and 'gifting' in Christ.

Lets look at some key questions: Do you believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit God? Do you seek to love Him and live for Him with all you are? Even though you frequently fail and fall, do you turn each time to Him and know His forgiveness and His Strength to persevere?  Answers of 'Yes' to even one these questions tell you that the Holy Spirit is alive in you.

Yet do you feel blocked by attitudes and assumptions that deny the grace that the Lord has given you through the Holy Spirit?  In other words do you feel disempowered by the disbelief within society, the church and even within yourself?  I am not suggesting or encouraging women to claim 'power' or 'position', but that through Unity in purpose, that comes through Christ and the Holy Spirit, doors are opened for the love and service of women in Christ, to finds its right place. 

This sounds very strong, even judgemental about what 'is'.  I do not mean it to be, but I am seeking to see things objectively and to own the difficulties and pain that  women who truly believe and worship a Living God through Christ our Lord, may be facing.  I once said to a Bishop, 'Do I have to remain crucified in Christ for the rest of my days on earth?  He didn't answer.  

I continued to knock and seek and ask within, and sought service in love, because God was/is with me.  I have been through many trials on this journey, and indeed the agony of the Cross again, when the Love and grace that God had given me, was despised and rejected without 'reason'.  As I continued to pray, and bless my enemies, the Lord enabled me to face the very depths of the traumas of my childhood.  I saw this as gift because His Truth sets us free.   I had many lies within me due to the shame at being alive (I was a failed abortion) and at being a woman (an unwanted, illegitimate girl child), and I needed to face them as LIES through Christ, and the prayers of the Mother of God. From these lies came many limiting beliefs about what I could or should do. My Truth is 'hidden in Christ, in God.' And so is yours dear Sister in Christ; always in forgiveness and repentance.

In 'keeping my mind in hell' according to St Silouan's experience*, but not despairing, I saw the history of women's despising, and girl children not wanted, and women and girls treated as 'sex instruments' or domestic slaves...and it's still happening. Many abortions are on account of the female sex of the baby. And even now young women in our culture, see themselves as vessels for sex in order to receive  'love' and attention. Or alternatively they aggressively assert their 'rights' and either get rebellious against authority and anything that comes near to male domination, or seek to assert themselves in their gifting and 'do well' in their careers.  And others, even as children suffer the agony of the Cross when innocence is defiled by men's lusts, even within the church. Where is God's righteous image in us?  How do we choose for Life in Christ?

Jesus Himself said to us, 'Weep not for Me but weep for yourselves'.   Dearest Sisters....maybe this is our calling in these days...to weep for ourselves - to weep for our love and grace denied, even by us.  Are we willing to stand when men crack jokes against women - even if they are named as 'saints' or Fathers of the Church.  Jesus made it clear it is NEVER Ok to call someone a 'Fool'  "And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.   (Matthew 5:22) When we take our eyes from Christ and the redeeming purposes of the church I don't believe we can call ourselves 'Christians'... .

I have surrendered day by day to the tasks I have been given by God, yielding to the Blessing I was given by an Archbishop for 'women's ministry'. When Covid struck I started to seek 'on-line' and have been so blessed to touch and be touched by the lives of many women throughout the world.  Again and again I see the lies that had been buried in me, alive in one way or another, in most women. But the pain involved in facing them, that they may be purified in the Truth, means going to the Cross with all the false gods that have covered the pain.  Oh Lord have mercy on Your servants and children.

Today the Lord called me again to live for my highest Truth in Him - the Cross.  Father forgive them they know not what they do.  This is not silence and denial about what is done in the name of religion, it is obedience to God the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit in response to what is done. So I pray blessings on my enemies, and all those who deny the Life of Christ in others, to bring healing and redemption to broken hearts - male or female.  Good shepherds suffer as much as God's women.  Father forgive the abusers of power and authority.  Dear Sister, (or Brother), may I encourage you to listen to your Heart.  What is God asking of you today? How does He want you to live out His instruction to all of us:

"He has shown you what is good. Or what does the Lord seek from you but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to be ready to walk with the Lord your God?"  (Micah 6:8)

Let us reach out our hand to God, and walk with Him in justice and mercy according to the gifts He has put in us and the situation in which we find ourselves.  Let us accept His work alive in and through us, looking to HIS Love and purpose, not bound as prisoners by the lies of darkness.

Come Lord Jeus; Come Holy Spirit.  I believe, help Thou my unbelief.

(*St Silouan was having difficulty worshipping Christ because the devil kept getting in the way.  He kept praying about this, until one day he heard from God, 'Keep your mind in hell, but do not despair'. I was given St Silouan as one of my guardian saints when I came into the Orthodox church and gradually understood why his grace from God is important to me.)