Dear Church Ladies

“Every wise woman encourages and builds up her family, but a foolish woman over time will tear it down by her own actions.” — Proverbs 14:1 TPT

We face so much pressure! Pressure from every angle to be everything to everyone: a better mom, wife, daughter, friend, employee, and volunteer - with a cleaner house, a fresher face, a tighter body, and newer clothes. We complain and lament between baseball, ballet, and barre that there aren’t enough hours in the day and all we want to do is have a break and get a moment to ourselves. Though if we really get honest with ourselves, we don’t know what to do with them when those moments do become available. We thrive in the chaos that we create with our over-packed schedules because we have fallen for the lie that we are the glue that holds our families together.

While we are trying to be everything to everyone, we end up planting our feet right in the middle of where God’s throne is supposed to be. All the while we are so distracted by all the good things that we are doing, all the experiences we are giving our children, and all the applause we can receive in our workplace that we are missing the point.

The point, my sisters, is to know and reflect Him! Only then can we be the thing that our people truly need: a mother who models a life in Christ, a wife that encourages her husband and does not tear him down, a friend that gives wise counsel, an employee that works as unto the Lord, and a woman that gives of her time freely for the sake of the Kingdom and not to feed some insatiable need to be seen and approved of. We need to stop living for the applause of our peers on social media and start living for the applause of One, for the treasure that rust cannot touch and moths cannot destroy.

I know by this point I’m not saying anything that you haven’t already heard from the pulpit, a podcast, or your own heart in those times when the chaos finally subsides and you have a moment of stillness. Ladies, we need to stop trying to save everyone and fix everyone and allow our husbands and children to make mistakes!

We have been indoctrinated by the world of sitcoms and girl talk to believe that lie that our men are incapable of daily tasks and basically teenage boys living in grown men’s bodies. No, I do not know your husband, but I do know that if we constantly treat someone as something they might just go believing it themselves. So what if we treated them with respect even if they didn’t earn it? What if we told them they were capable even before they could see it themselves? What if we became their greatest cheerleaders?

Imagine what kind of time you would have if you stopped doing everyone’s jobs for them and allowed them to learn and grow and do for themselves. Isn’t that one of our greatest desires? Successful children and marriages? Just because you have always been a “fixer” does not mean you have to be one tomorrow.

You see, God in His infinite wisdom, made us different from men. We have different strengths and weaknesses and together we are the image of God on the earth. We need to stop telling our men how to do their part and instead focus on our own! Yes, we have been oppressed for the better part of ever. But girls do not rule the world and girls are not the future, despite what the memes and coffee mugs are trying to sell us. Our oppression does not give us the right to oppress. What the world needs, what the church needs, and what our families need is to see God manifest through men and women in right relationship with each other, ruling and governing side by side.

God has a unique ministry for each and every one of us, but ladies, we’ve got to step down and let God in His rightful place or we will never be able to walk in freedom in our callings. There is so much more to be said, so many more things that my heart is crying out for this generation of women, but for today I will leave it at this. This letter is to me as much as it is to you. It’s time to stand up, my sisters, and start challenging the norm. We are strong, we are fierce, and together we are a force to be reckoned with. If we stand up for what it means to be a woman after the heart of God, if we stop getting distracted by all of the other voices vying for our attention we can shift the course of this generation and give our children, our daughters, an inheritance of a better foundation to grow from. We owe it to them and we owe it to ourselves to stop settling, to start fighting, and not give up until we have arrived.

Written by Amanda Strauser