A Love Letter on International Women’s Day

To the ones across time and space who have inspired and persisted,
thank you. Love begins in gratitude.

Thank you, Eve — Mother of all living — in the garden who was the end of the receiving line of blame in a world where sin affected an entire eco-system. Thank you for bearing maternal sacrifice graciously.

Photo by Allie Smith on Unsplash

Thank you, Hagar and Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel, Tamar, Deborah, Jael, Naomi, Ruth, Bathsheba, Rahab — thank you sisters from the Hebrew Bible who tricked and prayed, inspired, deceived, fought, and showed up over and over again to direct the course of faith and history. Your diversity and gumption to act most faithfully in the times you were alive enhances our vision of what a life of faith and femaleness looks like.

Thank you to the Gospel gals — Elizabeth, Mary the Mother, Anna, Mary Magdalene, Martha, Joanna, Salome, and so many who go by no other name than “woman.” You violated social norms, you saw, heard, touched the good news and lived to tell about it, even when the disciples called you and your story “trash.” You light a fire of strength beneath the women who come after whose stories will not be ones of victimhood but of truth-telling.

Thank you to Lydia, Phoebe, Eunice, Chloe, Priscilla, Junia, Tryphena and Tryphosa, Persis, Julia, Euodia and Synteche, Nympha, Apphia, and…