There is a certain magic lost in the absence of books. Deep connections are forged through the intimacy of gathering close to turn well-loved pages, eagerly anticipating the words and illustrations waiting for us on the other side.
Books help us learn, but books also help us love. Whoever teaches us to read loves us. Whoever writes the things we love to read loves us. Whoever reads alongside us and mirrors our excitement at newfound knowledge loves us.
Shelby Peck
But all too often, the pleasant purpose of books is overshadowed by the darkness of selfishness and the rhetoric of harm. Books are used to perpetuate injustice, and rather than making us feel like we can, they tell us we can’t.
Far too often, women with an interest in ministry, including myself, have been told we can’t; this is an expression often found in books. Many Christian authors use their gift of words and their respective platforms to publish a plethora of setbacks and barriers for women.
The continual publication of books that deny agency instead of encouraging others to develop their mindset and cultivate inner strength discourages women to step into their vocational calling.
“Thankfully, there also are books written by women in ministry and advocates for women in ministry.”
Thankfully, there also are books written by women in ministry and advocates for women in ministry, books that tell women they are gifted and called to lead through the emboldening of the Holy Spirit. These books allow their authors a medium through which to articulate her struggle and story of survival, but they also provide her audience with the opportunity to learn, shape and reclaim their own stories and the stories of women in Scripture.
Indeed, for me, it is the Bible, God’s word, that has been the ultimate authority through which I have learned to discern my calling.
For my Women in Ministry project in a class at Baylor University, I chose to write and illustrate a children’s book called I Am God’s Helper! I created this book as an emblem of love — love that tells girls all that they can be rather than what they can’t, love that enables an adult to help a child they love learn to read, love that celebrates the spaces of community and nurture in which children are supposed to be raised.
The purpose of this book is to celebrate the different gifts and callings God has placed upon women, whether they serve in vocational ministry or are active participants in the local church. Each page features a woman, “God’s helper,” serving in a different capacity in her local church, from the pulpit to the nursery to overseeing community outreach.
As children view the different roles held by women in the local church, they can imagine real names and faces of the women they know, generating greater awareness of the women in their own lives and the positive influence they hold. I hope this book not only will allow children to learn from an early age that women are equipped and emboldened to serve in any ministry context, but also that parents will encourage their children to listen to future callings and nurture relationships in which their children feel supported to pursue those callings.
We are not meant to grow and learn in isolation. Once we have become emboldened to find our voices, we are meant to teach others, hear from their experiences and share what we have learned. Through books, whether holy biblical texts or the sacred experiences of what God has done in the lives of modern women, we are not alone.
“Books are powerful, but they are even more powerful when placed in the hands of someone who loves us and desiresGod’s best for our lives.”
We are not alone in our setbacks, and we are not alone in our steps forward. We have the Holy Spirit, and we have each other.
My parents often recall the days in which I, as a young girl, would pull all the books off our bookshelf and beg them to read together. I am so thankful for the desire for knowledge they cultivated in me from an early age, and I am thankful for the countless hours they spent rereading overly familiar children’s books — books that told me I could and that taught me to find my voice through my own writing.
Books are powerful, but they are even more powerful when placed in the hands of someone who loves us and desires God’s best for our lives. My prayer is that a children’s book such as the one I wrote would teach children, especially young girls, they are equipped to follow God’s calling because they are supported by their caretakers and loved by their Savior.
The future still scares me, and I still wrestle with feelings of incompetence. But I am not alone. I suppose no woman in ministry ever feels ready, but what is vital is that she feels called. Listening to the call of the Spirit, even in fear, is brave. And I am called.
Shelby Peck is a journalism and religion student at Baylor University.
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To refrains of ‘But the Bible,’ I respond, ‘But the women’ | Opinion by Mandy McMichael
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