Jump at de Sun
All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us. (Hebrews 11:39-40, NLT)
...the decisions we must make as women in ministry to continue to blaze trails and pry open doors for others—doors that may not have opened for us…
In the words of the late Dr. Elton Trueblood, every generation has
the bittersweet task of “planting shade trees under which we know full well we shall never sit.” To plant them with joy or resentment is a choice. Pride, pain, regret, and bitterness at times prevent persons with a wealth of wisdom and experience from helping those who are coming after.
I remember a stinging experience I had as a seminary student. I was given an assignment to contact a prominent female pastor to speak with her about her church’s outreach ministry. To my surprise, she agreed to speak with me, but with great hostility she yelled over the phone,
‘I started this church when nobody wanted to have anything to do with me! They didn’t believe in women preachers. Why do they want to know how I do what I do? Where were all of you when I was working hard in the community and doing outreach to the poor?
Where were you when I started a food pantry and a clothes closet?’
After going on and on for a few more minutes she abruptly hung up. Clearly the pains of rejection had not healed. Even the high level of success she had achieved did not assuage the wounds she endured as a woman rejected and denied, having to start a church because no church would give her a chance despite her qualifications.
If individuals are honest, it can be hurtful to realize and accept that some ceilings will not be broken during their lifetime. Women in ministry are still blazing trails, as it were. Women can, however, take the proverbial mallet in their hands, determine to join together, and beat upon the glass ceiling to make a million cracks. They must decide that the hardships they have endured will not embitter them but instead will embolden them to help bring about a change. Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston declared,
“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to ‘jump at de sun.’ We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”
They must decide that the hardships they have endured will not embitter them but instead will embolden them to help bring about a change. (Smith: Beyond The Stained Glass Ceiling…pp. 87-87)
The words of singer/song writer Ruben Studdard are powerful and drive our point for today home…
Take the trials that you been through and all the times life made you blue, search down deep within yourself, make it medicine for someone else someone else…
Share the joys you wish you’d known, hold on to the tears that you share, bottle them with care as though for yourself, make it medicine for someone else someone else…
You gotta go on and it's hard I know sometimes the way you see it go, wish for you not to take it personal cause it's not about yourself, yes it's hard to face when you suffer for someone else…
Share the battles good and bad the hardest trials you've ever had, take out the trophies - take them off the shelf, make it medicine for someone else someone else…
Dear woman God, will you “take the trophies off the shelf and make it medicine for someone else?”
Excerpted from: Beyond the Stained Glass Ceiling: Equipping and Encouraging Female Pastors by Christine A. Smith ©2013 by Judson Press. Used with permission.