When Women Are “Divisive”
It’s Women’s History Month! I love that I can be inspired by my own history to dive into topics that aren’t widely talked about.
Especially since my “Church Hurt and Friends” blog post a few months back, the Lord has taught me so much about how I’m to handle the opinions of others. I briefly mentioned this on my Instagram story the other day: you all ~ if you only knew the depths of bondage to others’ opinions of me in which I’ve operated for YEARS, from which Jesus has set me free, maybe you’d understand the way I’m carrying my cross with a pimp walk of my newfound freedom. If you knew how long — not just in time, but in the unhealthy effect it had on me — I’ve played small without knowing it in ministry roles where over and over I was conditioned to believe that others’ opinions of me are meant to be my compass for operating, at least for the sake of keeping my role in ministry, maybe you’d get what it feels like for me now that the Lord has broken those chains of toxicity off of me, and how I breathe and operate differently.
Or maybe you still wouldn’t understand or get it, and that’s okay. Maybe you’d instead dismiss me as “divisive.” Maybe you’d prefer to keep my confidence and freedom in a box that you refer to as “loud.” Maybe my rediscovering my voice feels more comfortable for you to handle if you’re able to define it on your terms within your capacity.
The Labels Women Get
It’s interesting to me how often women are labeled certain things, just for using our voice.
During my wilderness season after being terminated this past fall from my role as Creative Arts Pastor, I decided to let the Lord use my journey however He wanted. This came soon after the Lord warned me He’d be taking me through a season of being misunderstood.
I now know His warning of being misunderstood was in preparation for not only being fired, but it was also for how He wanted to use my platform on social media. It was also for my husband Chad and I’s first book called WHITE BOY BLACK GIRL that’s coming out in Fall of this year (pre-order it here!). It was ultimately for a huge change in me that was loooong overdue.
I had always looked at certain confident black women in media who don’t seem to care about what anyone thinks of them, and I would think, “I would love to be there some day.” I truly believe the Lord is bringing me into that lightness and freedom that I longed for back then.
I’ve heard the labels “loud” and/or “divisive” a couple of times in the process of walking in this new lightness and freedom.
Isn’t it funny how “loud” a woman seems when we don’t like the way what she’s saying makes us feel? When was the last time you heard a man be labeled as “loud” for speaking his opinion or sharing about something painful that happened to him, even if others don’t like how he’s saying it?
Isn’t it peculiar how “loud” a woman can seem when we don’t agree with her? When her words make us uncomfortable because we don’t know how to hold in tandem a duality of emotions or opinions or decisions? For example, to remain friends with someone AND stay at the church that hurt them? (See my “Church Hurt and Friends” post for more on that specific topic.)
I’m so over this whole idea that women are to keep things pretty and glossy on social media. What for? So we can all feel isolated in our journeys? It’s WILD how many messages I get on Instagram from people I don’t know, thanking me for being real with what I’m going through, because they have felt so alone. Majority of these messages are from women. Specifically for us women in ministry, we can feel very isolated in our church hurt because NONE OF US ARE TALKING ABOUT IT. That’s not to put shame on us, because all we’ve been told is if we dare mention a word about it, we’re “loud.” If we prefer to be strong in our pain and actually use our voice to share our story, we’re “divisive.” We “make the church look bad.”
Us. Not the church who did the “bad” thing. Us who talk about it.
The real kicker is, the same opinions that label us those things would probably defend themselves by saying they would never tell us we can’t use our voice. “Well, no, you can use your voice, but just not that much or not in that way.” Okay, so now we’re getting tone-policed about how we talk about our own experiences. Now we’re expected to consider EVERY SINGLE DIFFERENT opinion of others in how we share what we’re going through, for the sake of each person’s definition of so-called “unity.”
You all, it’s too much. It’s unrealistic. Let women live.
It’s like people are afraid of the power of a woman’s voice. Now it’s like, God forbid we actually get real on social media about what we’re going through. God forbid we speak at all about our own experiences and share it on our own pages or blogs. God forbid I use the wording of “fired” instead of “terminated” or “let go” to pretty up what happened to me for whoever doesn’t enjoy coming face to face with it. God forbid I’m honest in saying I was done wrong.
No one’s story would ever be told if we never talked about pain. About triumph. About wrongs. About joys.
When women are “divisive,” what is it really? Division for who exactly? For example, if you think what was done to me was wrong, cool. If you don’t, cool. What I post about the subject won’t change that opinion for anyone.
What’s Actually Divisive
Maybe what’s actually divisive are the wrongful actions done to women, not women’s response to said actions.
But sure, it’s easier to label a lone individual woman as “divisive” and “loud” and make her the villain than to do so for a male. Much less a male in a position of power. Much less a male in a position of power in a church.
It’s a tale as old as time, unfortunately.
I hear balancing statements like, “What he did was wrong, of course…” And then more is heaped on the woman for her response to what he did wrong. If people dealt as seriously with the wrongs of men as they did with the responses of women, I think our world would look so much different. We punish women for speaking up and saying, “That’s wrong,” or, “That wasn’t okay,” or “I didn’t appreciate that.” Then we protect men, especially when connected to church leadership, at all costs. (Maybe because we have church in a space where only God should be, and so we can’t bear it being imperfect. But more on that in a possible future post.)
Women are labeled as “airing grievances on social media,” and “being divisive” in what we post. All for just speaking the truth of what happened to us. Even if we were airing grievances, that shouldn’t invalidate what we’re saying. But again, our emotions are used to negate our message. I can’t be just sharing what I’ve been through to empower other women. That’s giving me too much credit. I have to be ‘emotionally’ airing my grievances. That feels better.
Taking the Scare Out of Division
If you too are dealing with stuff like this in your own journey, where people have things to say about how you testify about what the Lord’s brought you through ~ and I can’t stress this enough ~ LET THEM BE WRONG ABOUT YOU. Let God handle it. Leave them on read if you need to.
Don’t be afraid to take a stand. Especially in the Church, we are so AFRAID of taking a stand. We are so AFRAID of disagreeing with each other, so much so that “division” has become a trigger word. We throw it out at every sign of disagreeance, at every spotlight on hard or uncomfortable truth of a situation. We see it as such a negative thing, because we’ve put UNITY on such a idolatrous pedestal ~ all the while forgetting that Jesus Himself said in Luke 12:51 that He came to earth to BRING division. He knew some people would accept Him and others would reject Him. He knew that association with Him could introduce problems in our relationships.
Walking in the freedom of Jesus in your life may lead to others to have issues with how you do so. While division isn’t my goal in what I post or even something I’ve been worried about, if it’s claimed by some people to be part of the end result? *Shrug* Okay. But is it really “division” if some people think what was done to me was wrong and some don’t? Is it really “division” if a church leader is questioned about what he did after someone sees a bit about it on social media and wonders what was up with that?
Really? That’s what we’re calling “division” now? Questioning?
Whoa.
I’d rather walk in the freedom of knowing my house built on Jesus won’t crumble just because who I am or what I’ve done is questioned. You wouldn’t show up on Instagram the same way I am if you were the one walking my journey?
Awesome. That’s so great for you.
But guess what? No one else gets to be me. And no one gets to be YOU. So we don’t gotta worry about how others would be US in our situation, because they aren’t.
Here’s a HOT TAKE for you: Differences in opinion do not mean division.
I know, I know, that’s crazy talk. Stick with me.
In fact, you can have differences in opinion and still be UNIFIED.
For example, in my own family, sometimes I see the world differently than each of my three older brothers. Does this mean we’re a divided family? No, it just means we have some differences. We’re still a unified team filled with love.
Another example: one of my best friends LOVES Taylor Swift. Me? I don’t particularly take to her music. We’re not “divided” in our friendship though. We just have different opinions. We can disagree and still be friends.
Who made the rule that even if there is division present, it’s bad? People are “divided” about a lot of things, and it doesn't have to always be so negative. There's “division” about who the greatest basketball player of all time is, about how much water we should drink a day, about which paint colors are best for which rooms in your home.
People don’t always know how to handle division, and it’s easy to run from what we don’t know. For example, my husband Chad and I have noticed how some men in the church have stopped pursuing a friendship with him, maybe because they have issue with how I’ve shown up on social media after I was fired. Not only has this taught us who our real and true friends are, but it has also shown us how uncomfortable it can be for people to hold in tandem seemingly opposing opinions. “I like this dude” and “I like my church” and “I don’t like how she does xyz” can feel like they can’t exist in the same space. To us they can. To us, social media posts about one’s painful experience in a church isn’t an end-all for a friendship. But it’s okay if it’s different for others. We can still be unified under Christ.
It’s Just Disagreeing
Women, those who your journey is for won’t be offended by it. To those poeple, it won’t be “loud” or “divisive,” because they will feel seen, for maybe the first time. Those who your journey offends simply aren’t meant for your message, and it doesn’t make you wrong or divisive. It just makes you NOT FOR EVERYONE.
You don’t have to accept the labels of others who don’t agree with you. Even with your emotions, you don’t have to accept the label of being “too sensitive,” just because you feel things differently from others. It’s not surprising that I have only ever been called “too sensitive” by men, who will, by default, handle things differently than me, solely because men and women are so different. I actually worked for a man who told me I couldn’t stand on my own two feet because, in his mind and for his liking, I gave Chad too much credit for my ideas by saying, “I was talking with Chad the other day, and I realized…” Even mentioning my husband in a simple way of just telling a story is viewed a certain negative way. Women will always be misunderstood and mislabeled, just for being ourselves.
So women, it’s up to US to be okay with others not agreeing with us, not approving of us, not accepting us, not understanding us. We can’t leave it up to others, because others usually don’t know what to do with that.
It usually doesn’t sit as well with others if they can’t sit you down to tell you they don’t agree with you, if they can’t convince you to change your mind, if they aren’t on the same page as you. I find comfort in thinking of how some of the greats of history were severely misunderstood, made fun of, disagreed with. The most Ultimate Example of this, of course, is Jesus Christ Himself.
Because Jesus was misunderstood and mislabeled, you can be too. Jesus makes it so you can have the audacity to WELCOME disagreeance from others without it affecting how you feel about yourself. You can allow people to not agree with you. In doing so, you dethrone the idol of the need for others to agree with you.
It’s just disagreeing. It’s not the end of the world. And it’s gonna be okay.
Let ‘em call you “divisive.” It makes them feel more comfortable.
Just keep striving to please God, girl.
You got this.
