Daughter of Abraham
TARA TURNER
When I was 15 or 16, my evangelical church hosted a purity retreat for the youth. We spent the night in the church and devoted most of the time split by gender, talking in a circle. The big prize at the end was a purity ring. Oh, and virtue and all that. During one circle time, the leader brought up women’s submissive role in marriage. My hand shot into the air to contradict her. I grew up in a very matriarchal family. I could not picture entrusting the finances to a man, let alone my eternal salvation. (A future coworker was at that same retreat. She said she remembered hating me for saying women should not be submissive to their husbands. We didn’t work together long.)
Almost a decade later, I was still part of that church and going through their premarital counseling. Here comes the submissive wife thing. I adamantly disagreed. My fiancé went to church because I led us spiritually. The only spiritual leading he would have done was to stay in pajamas every Sunday. We went to church and had a Jesus-centered relationship because I demanded it. Why in the world would I relinquish that responsibility? Well, I had to agree because if not, the pastor we wanted would not be allowed to marry us. He was a good friend, and it was very important that he was the one.
I somehow morphed my thinking to justify being a submissive wife. It felt like I not only gave up a piece of myself but also the strength of the women before me. However, if the church demanded it, surely there was something to it, right? I tried my hardest to be a Proverbs 31 woman (sorry if that made you cringe, ladies). I even started sewing (might have taken that chapter a little too literally). Being everything to everyone was completely draining, and I was angry and bitter about the lack of reciprocation from my husband. All the P31 wife blogs had little to say about that.
Nearly another decade and a divorce later, I am an independent, single mom. I find strength in Luke 13:16, “Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” This is the conclusion of Jesus schooling the synagogue leader after he scolded Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. The part I cling to is not the sweet sweet admonishing of leadership, but what Jesus calls the newly healed woman: a daughter of Abraham. In the Jewish tradition, men were the only ones allowed access to scripture and any sort of connection with God. The good women got their connection through the men that controlled them. Men were sons of Abraham, but women were not worthy of being daughters of the patriarch, merely the wives and daughters of the sons. By naming the woman a daughter of Abraham, He connected her straight to God. In the eyes of Jesus, she was equal to every other person in that room.
I am a daughter of Abraham. God blesses me with the faith and mental fortitude equal to that of men. I can lead my daughter, knowing that she will not have to someday change herself to meet the expectations of a misguided church or anyone. She is equal in every way because she, too, is a daughter of Abraham.
Tara is a mama of one daughter, Turner (AKA Tutu). They can usually be found on the left side of the sanctuary, singing with the worship team (Tara)/dancing in the front (Tutu), or watching the little ones in the nursery. They live in Washington with their cuddly black cats, Milo and Miguel.