Earlier this year, I underlined this passage out of Jonalyn Grace Fincher's book, Ruby Slippers: How the Soul of a Woman Brings Her Home:

"We say we want Christ to come in and make us new all the way to the center of our souls, but we really don't let him change this weight on women. We just settle for the feeling that this is our lot in life, hoping for better, but expecting the never-ending struggle with our identity and place as women" (page 180).

After rereading it, I added "really?" in the margin. It might have ended there, if Jonalyn wasn't one of our Gifted For Leadership contributors. But since I kept wondering what this meant for women in leadership, I emailed her. Her answers to my questions follow:

Caryn: You make an interesting point, and in many ways I agree. But as I kept thinking about this, I wondered what you were really saying here. Do you really think we WANT this struggle, this fight?

Jonalyn: That's a great question mainly because of the tension between the two hyped-up responses, "let go and let God" and "take up your cross and follow Jesus." Can I point out that the first one isn't in Scripture? Sure God says to "be still and know I am God" but this means we recognize his power, not abdicate our wills or desires for the sake of letting him operate without us.

God loves strong-willed women. He wants us strong enough to take up our cross and follow. He also wants us to work out our salvation with him alongside. He wants to be present in the new life in us, but this doesn't mean we surrender our capacities to be fully human. In fact, I'm not certain the idea of surrender is even biblical or taught by Jesus. He wants our submission, not our surrender. These are such different concepts.

Caryn: Go on?.

I see submission without surrender in the way Jacob wrestled with God, in the way Ruth sought out Boaz, in the way Anna waited for the Messiah in the temple. The mess and strain of wrestling with God is key to being a godly woman. I think too many women have given up wrestling; they've given up their wills and they think it is somehow God-honoring.

The identity most Christian women live with is that they just have to deal with the Genesis judgment: the pain in childbirth, the pain of having their husbands rule over them, the pain of wanting more from your man than he can give. We feel this is our bitter pill. Jesus becomes the savior that helps us swallow our bitter pill, but he cannot save us from the pill.

I don't think that's what redemption means. I also don't think Jesus came to give us some cheerleading while we live on this cursed earth. What I'm suggesting is that Jesus wants to take the pill away altogether.

Accepting the curses of Genesis is not the cross Jesus asks women to bear. We do have a cross to bear, but it's not this one.

Caryn: We certainly don't hear this very often.

Jonalyn: Jesus has more power than we give him credit. I wish women dove deeper into experiencing his new life. If we let Jesus save us from hell, why wouldn't we expect him to remake our womanhood as well? Jesus can make tremendous change in our souls now, he can redeem our fallen ideas of femininity, gender relations, womanhood. He can restore our broken relationships, our desires, our fear or pain of having and rearing children.

In the Gospels, Jesus guides us to see the new life he gives to women when he entrusts his resurrection to a female witness, Mary Magdalene, or when he encourages Mary of Bethany to learn with his disciples. Jesus has a transforming effect on women. He can work and restore women's desires as we were once created to be.

The doctrine that Jesus wants to restore us to the goodness that once existed in Eden is not a new idea, but it has been cloaked or forgotten for a long time. The Christmas hymn, "Joy to the World" hints at Jesus' curse-reversing power, "He comes to make his blessings flow / far as the curse is found."

In the 17th century, George Fox, founder of the Quakers, penned these words, "For Man and Woman were help meets in the Image of God, and in Righteousness and Holiness, in the Dominion before they fell; but after the Fall, in the Transgression, the Man was to rule over his Wife; but in the Restoration by Christ, into the Image of God, and his Righteousness .?.?. they are help meets, Man and Woman, as they were before the Fall" (italics mine).

We could live as restored women.

I like to think of redemption as a fresh pool of water. Jesus invites us to jump in and be refreshed and renewed. He wants to cover us completely with new desires, trust instead of fear, gender reconciliation instead of gender strife. But some of us hold out, we tell him the water is for heavenly times, not for now. Jesus is treading water, waiting patiently. Ruby Slippers is my story of what happened when I decided to dive in.