This is My Story

The sound came from the deepest portions of my soul. Internally I noted to self, how I sang with the full measure of my voice and heart that Sunday. 

Our church is leading a sermon series titled “Heroes of the Bible: Great Women of Faith”.

And I am so deeply affirmed and so profoundly grateful for the Biblical scholarship on the role of women in church leadership across Biblical history. 

Profoundly I say!

Huldah, Deborah, Ester, Priscilla, and Mary Magdalene: all chosen by God to voice God’s teachings and prophecies in times when women were chattel, property. When mere men gave them no voice. God gave us His image and uses our gifts and our voices to influence His church; and has, since earliest Biblical times. 

But back to the music that Sunday.

The hymn was “Blessed Assurance”.

You know it. 

“This is my story, this is my song…”. 

Lyrics so familiar to generations of American Christians of the 20th and 21st centuries. 

Never in my lifetime of church education, in Choir School, in Sunday  School, VBS, Youth Group…never was it mentioned that this was written by Francis Crosby, [a female Francis] …Fanny Crosby, a woman. A blind woman of the 1800’s. A woman who wrote hundreds of hymns. A woman who met with U.S. Presidents. A woman who influenced her church.

Soul bursting recognition by our holy God, affirmed by my home church.

This is why I heard my voice sing with the full measure of its soul praising source.

God’s story includes me. My gender. 

Women, His image bearers, fully valued and called by God to teach, preach, and prophesy.

“This is my story, this is my song. Praising my savior all the day long.”

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