Get Up Daughters, The Glory Of The Lord Is Upon You!"
 by Carol Scott

When I was a young mother in 1965, as I was hanging clothes on the clothesline, a great light came beside me and a hush covered everything as if the world itself had stopped turning. Notice I was not in a church or on my knees in a great cathedral. God permeates women’s lives right where they are in their ordinary days. The kitchen sink can be a woman’s cloister, or my case, the clothesline was my meeting place that day. From deep within me, a place untouched by sin, a place I cannot access by my mind, a place free of illusions, a place I can never will myself into, a place of brilliant tenderness, I heard the voice of Jesus speak to me. Then, I was taken up, though my feet were firmly rooted in the earth, I was taken up and I saw across the city. I saw the glory of God burning in the women. I saw the fire of God lit in them. Glory, glory, glory! Heaven and earth are full of that glory and I saw it burning in the women.

I have seen you. You are like a bush burning in the desert. You are a light set on a hill. This I know about each one of you, the whole spirit world sees you. As they gaze at you the angels rejoice and the demons shudder. For you are woman, designed from the very beginning to hold the glory of God. As scripture says in 2 Cor.14:7, we men and women, earthen vessels, hold a treasure, the glorious presence of God.

I come here with a deep belief that women and men serve no good purpose by denying this glory. When women deny the eternal flame of glory within, they become alienated from their very selves. When they deny the glory within they become spiritually bent over. Like the stooped woman in scripture the very bones of their bodies and spirits bend under the weight of an ancient lying spirit. (Lk.13:10-13)

Yet, I know that no matter how stooped woman has become in the church, the voice of Jesus is still calling her out. Telling her to stand tall. Calling her a daughter. In scripture that stooped woman went to the synagogue bowed like a question mark (?) not knowing who she was in God, not knowing her inheritance in the family of God, and she came out like an exclamation point (!). That is my hope for all of you in this conference that you will walk out of this conference like an exclamation point, knowing the glory that God has given to women as well as to men. I hope both men and women will leave this place standing tall in truth, empowered to stand up and call to others as Jesus did, “woman, you are set free.”

I believe we woman have an important message to share not just with each other but with the entire church. So I am here at Susan Hyatt’s invitation to share my testimony with you. I will simply tell of my time before I had scriptural insight, what changed my scriptural view of women, and how I apply my understanding of biblical womanhood now.

I was born in a little rock house in the middle of the Kansas prairie where wheat fields move like great oceans of undulating green waves. I was blessed to marry a geologist who took me out of those wheat fields and who invited me across wild oceans, up the world’s tallest mountains, and into remote places I had only dreamed of as a child.

Each time I returned to the States with perplexing memories of the women I had seen in these countless countries. I saw women who had been sexually mutilated, women who were poor, women who were abused, silenced. I saw elegant women in government mansions. I visited with prominent women at fine banquets and conversed with scholarly women at universities. But each time I would return to the States troubled in my spirit. I was so troubled in the Spirit that I began weeping for women. I wept because so few of the women I had seen knew who they were in the family of God. They were stooped.

Few knew that before they were ever conceived in their mother’s womb or that God had cradled them, breathed on them and sent them here with a mission. They did not know there was a mandate on their lives that no religious institution or no culture was to thwart and which no man could fill.

My spirit was troubled by what I saw on these trips, but I didn’t know how to incorporate these experiences into my life. The reason I couldn’t yet incorporate or speak about these women was because I lacked an understanding of God’s written plan for them. I was scripturally blind. I had no scriptural roots for what I was seeing. I was blinded to biblical womanhood; and worst yet, I didn’t know my own blindness.

How could that be? I was a life-long Christian, a cradle Catholic. I was Spirit- filled. I prayed in tongues. I was covered with the blood. I had studied the word and heard preaching every Sunday. But, I was scripturally blind. To me, women in scripture were minor characters, except for Mother Mary in the New Testament and a few major women in the Old Testament. Women in the book of ACTS were invisible to me. I read right over their names. I had selective vision when it came to reading the Bible and I didn’t even know I was missing anything. For example, when I read of Priscilla and Aquilla, I read right over Priscilla as if she just tagged along with Aquilla. I was blind to biblical womanhood.

It was not until I was standing in the middle of the double dry desert in Abu Dabi that my eyes began to be opened. It was 112 degrees in the shade and I, like the wild camels, was seeking any slim shadow a desert plant would offer. It was then that I saw her coming across the desert with her water jar in hand. She was covered in a heavy burqa and walked with a slow pace across that hot sand. It was a pace no doubt set by her mother and grandmothers before her. She was coming to a well. As she approached the spigot she saw me. She set down her water jar and turned to face me. We were two women, alone in the desert. We stood facing each other with no words between us, but with a knowing look that women sometimes have for each other. It was an understanding without sound.

When I returned to the States, I couldn’t get that woman out of my mind; and strangely, I could only see her in red. I was so sure that she was dressed in red that I asked my husband if there was a chance that her garment was red. “No, not there” he said. As I puzzled about the woman in red, I remembered that the early prophets often wore red. What was the Spirit trying to say to me? I whispered, “What is it you want to say to me, Lord? How am I deaf and blind to you, Holy Spirit? Speak Lord, I’m listening.” I took up a Bible and began reading the story about the woman at the well (John 4 ). The line “She set down her water jar,” jumped out at me. So that day, I set down my water jar, that is, I set down my old way of gathering holy water, and I began to listen with new ears to the scriptures. I let the Spirit lead me. As I did so, my blindness began to be washed away in that deep well of scripture.

As I read, I saw that Jesus believed in the total equality of men and women.

I saw that Jesus’ ministry was supported by women, spread by women, announced by women and shared by women; and I painfully realized that for 2,000 years church thinking has been almost exclusively male. Little or nothing of women’s spiritual journey into the scriptures has been preached on Sundays. Little or nothing of women’s insight has been incorporated into church documents. I knew the entire church was stooped because of that omission.

Every day the Holy Spirit and I read scripture together. I heard the Spirit urge within me, “I want to lift shame off women.” “What shame, Lord?” I asked. Immediately a childhood memory returned. It was a memory of myself as a 7- year-old, little girl sitting in a church class. We called it catechism class. The teacher was telling us about original sin and the garden story. When the teacher concluded the story, one of the boys said, “Why did Eve do that? Boy, oh boy, Eve ruined everything for everybody.” In that moment, I looked at the boys; and I knew I was different, less somehow, and of the gender who brought evil to everyone. That ancient lying spirit came quickly to every little girl in that class, and the silent shame shrouded us and began to stoop us. The shame-filled translation lie of the garden had just been passed on to another generation of children. As I recalled that childhood memory, I understood this was the shame the Holy Spirit wanted to lift off women. Lift the ancient lie. Lift the shame.

Quickly I grabbed the Bible and turned to Genesis. But now I read the story with new eyes. I read Gen. 1: 26-27, “Male and female God created them. In God’s image they were created.” God is male and female; and woman in all her bloody roundness is an image of God! Scripture says it is so.

I understood immediately that the Holy Spirit is grieved when we infer that Eve was created inferior. I understood that we grieve the Holy Spirit when we pass on the lie that woman’s subordination to man occurred at creation. Scripture does not say that. Bad translations do.

God’s original plan was not that woman would be suppressed, oppressed, depressed, denied opportunities, beaten by their husbands, mistreated, raped, mutilated, veiled, stereotyped, bullied, shamed, enshrouded, hidden, silenced, and enslaved. God’s original destiny for woman, a destiny that was restored by Jesus, is that woman would rule on earth with Adam. As I read, I realized that God gave them both dominion and told both to go bear fruit. He gave women as well as men the apostolic commission to go. That was before sin rent the genders apart and before marriage was a cultural institution. Humanity was originally designed for equal partnership and the apostolic mandate was given by God to both women and men.

This is God’s basic plan. This is the plan satan wants to thwart. Satan knows women are pivotal to God’s plan. To save himself, satan has sought to destroy women. To prolong his time here he has in every culture, in every generation, warred against women and they have grievously suffered. Lying stories about women have been told through the centuries by the Father of Lies, and many have believed his tales. Scriptures have been twisted and poorly translated to suit those erroneous beliefs

So now I speak in homes, prayer groups, discussion groups, wherever the door opens. My message is, Jesus, Friend of Women. When I speak to women’s groups, I say clearly, “Men are not the enemy.” Men are designed by God to be equal companions with us in the kingdom. Women and men were designed by the Creator for joint ministry, for egalitarian ministry, together, for partnership ministry. I tell the Roman Catholics and I tell other denominations that I believe God is restoring the egalitarian ministry, restoring it as was the original design.

I believe as truth is being spoken, women are being set free from a deep anger that has come through generations of victimization. They are being set free from deep anger, but at the same time not going into ungodly submission. I believe men’s eyes are being opened to truth which is setting them free. I believe this is a very important time in which God is breaking restrictions that have bound women and blinded men. This time of restoration is so important because Acts 3:21 says, “Christ is being held in the heaven until the times of universal restoration of which God spoke.” What we are doing here today is part of that universal restoration.

A most pressing prayer Jesus prayed in his agony was for unity. The restoration of partnership ministry is part of Jesus’ pressing prayer for unity. We must make that unity our high priority. We have not yet opened the gift of unity in the church.

God is saying to the church, “Get up My Daughters and My Sons. My Glory Is Upon You. I am lifting restrictions. I am restoring the Garden’s partnership ministry. I am breaking ungodly submission. I am stopping gendered ministry. I am restoring the original design.

After that Holy Spirit lesson on Genesis, the scriptures were on fire. I saw women in the holy Bible whom I had never seen. I began to understand the great role women had in salvation history.

A few examples: I saw that women were the key players in the Hebrew nation’s salvation. Without women we would never be singing “Go Down Moses, Way Down in Egypt Land.”

Two midwives broke the law at great risk to their own lives, plunged their arms into the birth waters, and made sure Moses lived. We need women today who are not afraid to plunge into the birth waters of what God is birthing in the church today.

I read of the great prophetic Miriam, the first woman I know in scripture who led women to freedom, by leading them in the dance of freedom as they left Egypt. The poet, Mary Lou Sleevi, writes, “Oh that women today would point their toes in God’s direction and, like Miriam, turn this earth into God’s dance floor.” A victory dance is coming. We need Miriams of this generation to stand up and lead the dance to victory.

I stumbled onto Junia, the apostle who suffered imprisonment and who was honored as an apostle until the 12th century when attempts were made to erase her from history. And, there was deacon Phoebe. You have no idea how this rattled the brain of a Roman Catholic who has known nothing but male hierarchy. I hope you will give the Holy Spirit permission to rattle your brain a bit. We need men and women today who have the courage necessary to allow the Holy Spirit to shake, rattle and roll their brains and move them beyond theological and denominational boundaries.

I read Anna with new eyes. Anna, the old one, was the first person to evangelize the Jews. When Jesus was just 8 days old, she told them the newborn Jesus was the Messiah. She was such a prophet of God that she recognized Jesus among dozens of children in the temple that day and she spoke to every seeker who came into the temple. Anna’s story has so much to say to us today, especially to older women, who are the most silenced and forgotten people in our culture and in our churches.

There is a stigma in our culture that comes to women in old age. Why do you think we women put harsh chemicals on our faces and even undergo a surgeon’s knife? We know that wrinkles can silence women’s wise prophetic voices and hush their gifts. Today, God is restoring the ministries of wrinkled women. God is calling out Annas, His elder daughters. Restrictions are being taken off older women. They are being released for ministries. Wherever I am, I call out to elderly women and say, “Elder daughter of God, do not say I am too old. Arise, stand up, the glory of the Lord is upon you, and like Anna, you cannot be silent.

Remember too that it was a woman who initiated Jesus’ first public miracle at Cana. At Cana, Mary revealed what God wanted to do because she knew the timing of God. I understood that we women of today are to be aware of God’s time and courageously initiate the miracles in this generation even when society does not agree and the church murmurs against us. There is wine to be poured out for this generation; and we women, like Mary, must stand up and call for it.

As I read and studied the scriptures, the Holy Spirit would nudge me to check the pictures that were in my head. Though I was on a pathway of truth, I had faulty pictures in my head.

For example, how many women witnessed the crucifixion? The picture in my head was Mary, Mary Magdalene, and a couple other women as seen in some famous Italian painting. I had allowed someone else to paint a false picture in my head. The gospel of John says many women were there witnessing the crucifixion. Every time I read of the crucifixion, I had to take down the faulty picture in the gallery of my mind and consciously see John’s many brave women standing on the hill witnessing. Sometimes that is all we can do is witness and remember so we can tell the truth.

And when I read of the two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, why did my mind usually make pictures of two men walking on the road? Who put that picture in my head? Traditionally, it was thought they were husband and wife-- partnership ministry.

Why did I see only men at the last supper? Knowing now the egalitarian nature of Jesus’ ministry, why did that faulty picture hang in my head? I had allowed a famous last-supper painting to nullify the truth of scripture.

He said to his disciples, “Take and eat, this is my body, do this in memory of me.” Why do I have pictures of only male disciples receiving that request? Disciples were men and women.

Do you have some pictures in the gallery of your mind that you need to take down? Do it today!

As the pictures in my mind changed, the Spirit began to correct my habits of speech. Linguists, people who study language, tell us that a word is not a word unless it puts a picture in your head. The Holy Spirit wanted my words to paint accurate pictures for others.

I no longer use the term “men” when I mean men and women because I know that word “men” will put faulty pictures in the hearers’ heads.

When I mean male, I say men. When I mean female, I say women.

When I mean male and female together, I say humanity.

When I say disciples, I make certain listeners know disciples were women and men.

I encourage you to watch your language, be careful of the pictures you are painting in the minds of others because God wants us to put on a new mind, and that mind of Christ will bear no false pictures. Speak truthfully. Use accurate words.

Children in our churches hear mostly male examples and male images. I balance this with truth.

I hang pictures in the gallery of my grandchildren’s minds by simply teaching scriptural truth. When I make bread and my grandchildren are there, I speak scriptural truth. I say, “God is like a woman making bread.” When a child is scared and needing to hide in the arms of God, I embrace that child; and I say, “ God is like a mother hen.” When we have lost something and the family is searching and finally finds the object, I say, “God is like a woman looking for a lost coin.” When I am mixing yeast into the flour, I say, “God’s kingdom is like a woman putting leaven in three pecks of meal until all is leavened. You see, I am hanging new pictures for this generation of children.

I am assuming there will be some sorting and rearranging in all our minds. Some old pictures may be tossed out and new ones hung. It may be painful to let go of cherished paintings, but if we search here together for truth we will all be set free. Did Jesus not say, “I have more to tell you but you could not bear it now.” (John 16:12) Didn’t Jesus also say, “I will send the Spirit of Truth who will guide you to all truth.” Jesus is here wanting to tell the church what it couldn’t bear to hear in earlier years and the Holy Spirit of Truth is hovering to set BOTH men and women free today.

“I have much more to tell the church,” the Lord says. “Listen. My truth will set you free.”