Testimony from a woman who watched WIM DVD

Recently, I received an email from a woman who purchased my 4 DVD set “Women in Ministry Silenced or Set Free?” and then wrote me about the impact that the DVDs had on her.  I was so touched by her testimony that I asked permission to share her story with the world.  I have removed her name as she requested anonymity because of her situation.  I hope that you will be encouraged and touched as I was when I read her story.

 

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Dear Cheryl,

I’m not sure if you are the one I should write to, but I wanted to let someone know that I watched the DVDs “Women in the Ministry” twice and my reactions to it.

For three days I was an emotional wreck.  I got angry, I cried, I’d stopped watching it and walked around the house talking to myself.  I fell to my knees and told God I didn’t understand.  I even was asked by others if I was feeling ok or if I was sick.  It tore me up inside.  Please, let me explain.

I am a woman in my fifties..My background is a lifetime of being in conservative, fundamental, baptist churches and have been married for thirty some years to a man with a similar background.  Our women are restricted in serving the Lord and are constricted to servant roles in our churches.  We should only wear skirts and dresses which must be mid calf.  We should not be bare armed although to the elbow short sleeves are permitted.  We may cut and style our hair, but it should be at least shoulder length.  We cannot preach, period, or teach males once they are 13 years of age and we cannot hold any type of leadership position, even on committees or panels.  A man (usually the husband of the woman who really needs to oversee the event or function) is usually appointed the position of leader even if it is only a figurehead.  We are taught that our roles are “separate, but, equal.”

The workings of the Lord

Through the workings of the Lord (though some may say the devil) I came across your web site.  I was intrigued and ordered the DVD set WIM.  I have always thought that something wasn’t correct about the restriction we are forced to be under.  When I was a teenager, before I truly and fully understood this restriction, I felt called to be a missionary.  I felt sure I knew to whom I was called and where I was to go.  I counseled with my pastor as all good congregational members do and was shocked, confused and hurt to find out that I couldn’t be the missionary I felt led to become.  I was told that no mission board would back me because I was a single woman and that the only way I could be a missionary to the people I felt called to was if I married a man who was also called to the same.  But truth be told, I had to be wrong about my calling, because God calls men.  God prepares the heart of a woman to follower her husband into the mission field, but doesn’t allow her to answer the call of a leadership position because the Bible says so.  If I truly was called, it must be only to help my future husband in his ministries.

I couldn’t understand why God would do this, after all, men were as sinful in His sight as women were and women were just as equal in God’s sight as men.  I wanted to do what was right.  My choices were thin, I could either accept God’s Word or be in rebellion.  As time went on, I came to accept that men just might be more special to God than women.  So I pushed my “calling” aside and accepted my role as a woman in the church.  I married young, raised my children, helped my husband in his ministries, taught the 4 + 5 yr. old Sunday School, sang in the choir, played organ/piano for services, etc., etc., etc., but I never really had peace.  It was as if there was a “little tiff” between me and God.  It was as if I had a hole in my heart.  And when a man stood up behind the pulpit to preach on women and their roles, I would cringe, I would resent it and fight back the tears.  That lost, confused and hurt feeling I felt that day so long ago would rise to the surface.  I would tell myself that that was just my sin nature resisting the commands of God.  After all nobody likes to be told what to do.. I would then ask God to forgive me for being rebellious and I would force it all back down.

Reaction

I watched the DVDs the first time with the reaction I mentioned at the beginning of this letter.  After all, this was not what I had been taught.  How could this be right?  How could Bible Scholars, men who had spent their whole life studying the Bible backwards and forwards, have missed this?  After I had settled down, a few days later, I watched the DVDs again with my Bible and a concordance with a Hebrew/Greek Bible Dictionary and I followed along.  Everything that was being discussed seemed correct and I greatly rejoiced.  The hole in my heart has started to heal, because I now know that man is behind the restriction, not God.

I, also, mourn.  For although I now embrace the truth and will defend any woman who would dare claim these teachings for her own, it’s too late for me.  I cannot do the same because to do so could mean I might lose my family.  If I could not convince them that these DVDs speak the truth, I would be labeled a heretic.

Oh how I do so wish that the Scriptures used in the DVDs were from the King James Version.  It would take a miracle for me to convince my husband or some other man from the church to watch these.  On the off chance a miracle would happen, as soon as the first Scripture is read and he/they realize its not KJV, they will dismiss it.  They will mock.  They will give no value to it.  It doesn’t matter that the study goes back into the Hebrew and the Greek, if the scriptures are not from the KJV then it is a work of Satan trying to corrupt the Word of the Lord.

Thank you

Thank you so much for producing these DVDs.  They not only started a healing process in my life, but also, I am now wondering about other things that I have been taught as Bible truths.  Some are:  1. marriage.  This would seem to go with the WIM (How submnissive is submissiveness supposed to be?);  2. women’s apparel (How are we supposed to dress?);  3. KVJ verses other Bible Versions;  4. Pastor Rule. (Does he really have absolute authority?);  5.  Church Discipline (Is it necessary and, if so, what is the proper way to administer it.)  Perhaps you will consider making DVDs on these subjects.

I wish to know what church or denomination you are from.  Perhaps there is a church in my area I could attend, ifone day I am able to break away from mine.  It is so hard to attend now that I have watched the DVDs and know the truth.  A visiting evangelist made a statement in which he cruelly denounced women counseling men and the men of the congregation responded with a hearty “Amen.”  It hurt.

I pray that Christian men will have their eyes opened to the truth as they read their Bibles and put away their preconceived notions and beliefs.  I pray that they will soon liberate Christian women everywhere.  However, I feel like Moses.  I am looking over into the Promised Land, but I won’t see it in my lifetime.

In Christ,

(name removed by request)