BONUS: A Book Review: “I Don’t Even Like Women” by Natalie Runion
I Didn’t Think I Needed This Book; I Was Wrong.
To all my fellow female ministry leaders and teachers:
Confession: I went on a difficult journey with I Don’t Even Like Women: And Other Lies That Get in the Way of Sacred Sisterhood. You see, while I grew up in a very similar landscape as author Natalie Runion—women’s ministry games guessing what’s in my purse, male-dominated leadership teams, and friends who were “good Christian” girls with little desire to push boundaries—the first time I read this book, I read with all sorts of pride thinking, “Oh, that’s too bad that Natalie was hurt so badly, but I’ve already been healed and know all of this.”
But, oh, the humility when God began to peel back the layers of my own identity deeply formed by my upbringing! He showed me that those were callouses speaking, not a truly healed heart. Upon a second read-through of I Don’t Even Like Women, I have come to realize that I completely missed the power of this book’s message because I didn’t want to face the vulnerable truth that I am not operating out of healing but rather hurt. For decades, I have relegated myself to a dimmer version of who God designed me to be as a female teacher because my strength, my leadership, and my gifts were “too much” for my sacred sisters—often driving them away—and I felt they were even “too much” for the godly male leaders on the same ministry teams as I. I never felt that I “fit in” exercising my strengths, so I dumbed down to blend in and dimmed my light just a bit so as not to stick out too much. In doing so, I limited how God could use me, and I felt most comfortable acting as a wallflower in a room full of women, afraid my gifts at full brightness would chase other women away.
But near the end of I Don’t Even Like Women, Natalie writes that we can write our own scripts “of women of faith, who welcome the lonely and marginalized in sacred sanctuaries from the church to the home who will NEVER have to say, ‘I don’t even like women,’ because they have been so loved by those who have come before.” Oh, how my heart longs to be that woman! But until I step into my God-given (not hurt-shaped) identity, I will not change history but rather repeat it. This book was my wake-up call to start living differently as a woman in ministry and as a member of the sacred sisterhood. The message in this book served as an encouraging companion, grabbing my hand, catching my tears, and leading me along in this vulnerable journey to shed my cloak of insecurity and let my light shine in all its brightness.
We followers of Jesus don’t need a room full of women who think, act, and love God in exactly the same ways. We need a Church full of unique female personalities who shine so brightly they make “sticking out” the norm, so that when new women come in, they feel empowered to shine their own unique light, adding to the spectacle of different lights, not in competition with one another but in synergy, creating a dazzling display that gives God glory.
You, too, can shine your brightest as a female ministry leader, but only after you name the lies that Natalie so poignantly names in this book and begin to “rewrite the script” and put Truth into practice instead. This book is your invitation to start your own healing journey so that you can let your light shine the way God designed.
As one of the theme song of our childhood so aptly teases, “Hide it under a bushel? No! I’m gonna let it shine!”
Buy I Don’t Even Like Women: And Other Lies That Get in the Way of Sacred Sisterhood* here.
*Affiliate link
