Womanhood: The Importance of Sharing Our Stories and Owning Our Truth

Paris, 2008

This weekend has been pretty remarkable.

We have a new president here in the United States, if you hadn’t heard.

But this isn’t about that.

This is about women.

Me.

My sisters.

My mom, aunts, and grandmothers.

My girl cousins.

My sisters in Christ.

This is about all of us.

I feel so encouraged.

And yet, truth be told, I did not want to write this post.

It feels too much like “taking sides” and I want this space – Shrewd + Beatific – to be welcoming and safe for everyone.

So let me get this out of the way first, I love our country and I support the President of the United States.

However, I do not like him very much and he has not earned my trust.

That’s not to say that every president needs my trust or previously had it, but, in this case, my gut does not trust him and I have learned to trust my gut.

That being said, this post is not meant to be about a man or politics.

My energy for the next four years and beyond will not be focused on demeaning or hating anyone.

My goal will remain what it has been since we started this #sbgalmovement last fall: to edify urban Christian women.

I want to empower you.

I want to inspire you.

I want to love you.

And I want to stand in truth beside you.

Our power is in our voices and, today, I felt God nudging me to share a story that I tucked away in the back of my mind and chose to forget about:

A few weeks into my study abroad experience back in 2008, two students I had become friendly with in my program and I decided to travel to Paris together as a part of a larger group that was descending on the city from my university’s programs in France, UK, and Spain.

Our first big destination.

The other two students coordinated with their friend coming from London and arranged for us to stay at a hostel near Sacré-Cœur in the 18th arrondissement in Northern Paris.

I was looking forward to a weekend with new friends, seeing old friends from other abroad programs, and checking out all of the Parisian sites that I had heard so much about!

Or at least that is the projected image I wanted people to see.

I wanted to be hopeful because the alternative isn’t cool, fun, or something to write home about.

You see, I had just become a Christian five months before I studied abroad and I had spent those months in complete turmoil trying to make sense of my life.

I was asking myself questions like: Who am I? How does a Christian act? Who are my friends?

And I was coming up empty and confused.

It was a challenging time trying to find my footing, knowing that I couldn’t go back to what I used to be and yet having no one to help me go where I thought I was meant to besides Jesus, which felt pretty useless, at times, as a former party girl on a college campus.

I had spent years becoming very good at figuring out how to be cool and assimilate. I knew how to make it look like I fit in.

And here I was feeling like I needed to not fit in anymore. I can’t fit in or they’ll think I’m the person I used to be when it’s all I knew how to do.

Safe to say, I was really turned around and yet urgently trying to figure out which way is up – towards the Light, towards my Heavenly Father.

So here I was, in a foreign country, surrounded by more new faces that I wanted to be accepted by and travel with while subconsciously hating myself for struggling with wanting that.

The first day was a little bumpy. We had a super early flight – thank you Ryanair – and I’ve always struggled to put on my “happy face” when I’m tired and moody so I wasn’t as malleable as I know I can be.

Dynamics with the two students from my program and their friend from London felt complicated, which resulted in my feeling protective and defensive of my place as the new “abroad bestie”.

As every insecure girl knows, I became cliquey, clingy, and tried to demonstrate my dominance as someone to be reckoned with.

It backfired.

I felt rude, irritable, and unlike myself.

I ended up isolating myself from them in a stance of I won’t put up with being ignored and so I’d rather be by myself than deal with you people.

Unsurprisingly, I was miserable.

On the second day, I decided to switch tactics and hang out with a girl I knew that was in town from London instead.

However, she was with a big group of girls from her dorm and, with highly-deflated self-esteem, I felt like a leech and an add-on that no one would miss if I disappeared.

And, of course, I embodied those sentiments physically.

That night we decided to get dressed up and go out to dinner. I’ll never forget what I wore. It was this black cotton wrap dress made by Splendid and I loved it.

Do you know that feeling when something bad is about to happen and life goes into slow motion, but you’re still unable to stop it?

That’s how the subsequent moments felt.

I was walking behind the group as we made our way to dinner, feeling lowly and mulling over the events of the weekend.

Within seconds someone groped my butt from behind – hard – and I stopped in shock.

How dare this dirty, old man touch me? I thought as I glanced at the offender.

I was infuriated!

And yet the second thought I heard was: aren’t Christians supposed to love even in moments of hate?

I was immobilized between the urge to slap him and the doubt that as a Christian I felt like I needed to be okay with maltreatment because "hurt people hurt people" and all that.

I turned to him with an indignant expression and he had the audacity to switch to English and start cursing the F-word at me.

In response to his outburst, I felt a range of emotions fly through me despite the slow motion – surprise, hurt, fear, shame – and then suddenly I was able to run away from him and caught up with the group.

I have downplayed that moment ever since it happened.

I told my friend a few minutes later when there was a lull in the conversation, but her response felt inadequate and distracted. Looking back, I’m not sure that she could have said anything that would have consoled me in that moment.

Even worse, I told my two new friends when I saw them the next day and, because of our interactions earlier in the trip, I felt their response was indifference.

I honestly have no idea how I communicated the events of that day to any of the people I told it to, but if I had to guess I would say I didn't do it justice and so their responses were likely self-fulfilling.

In retrospect, I realize that my heart was breaking because I couldn’t understand why something like that would happen to me and I didn't know how to communicate it to anyone, even myself.

Didn’t that guy see my worth?

Didn’t he see my precious value?

How could I be worthy and precious, if I were treated that way?

I felt violated, unsafe, and unloved.

And yet, thankfully, that is not the end of this story.

At some point later on – probably while I was at SOM – I forgave that man for his actions.

Even now, I forgive him for his selfishness.

I pray that God has met him in the years since and transformed his life.

I ask that God blesses him and gives him favor.

We, as women, are not defined by what happens to us.

We are defined by what we do about it.

My journey has been long.

I’d be lying if I said I pulled it together right after this trip and went on to be a strong, confident woman from then out on.

Our stories are mosaics of triumph and disappointments and that is what makes them beautiful.

God did not say that he would protect us from all evil. Think about Job, David, and Judas.

He said he would love us and he wants to be in relationship with us.

The richness of my life contains the heart-breaking reality of this story.

The question I want to ask myself is: how do I take this and turn it into glory for His kingdom?

I think in writing this post today, God gave me His answer.