I find myself, these days, unexpectedly in conversations with ancient women I never met.

I’m about to stand up and speak about Leah, the one Jacob didn’t want, and I stop and have a whispered conversation with her.

Not exactly to her or with her. But I hold her in my heart – hoping I will do her justice, this ancient grandmother of my Messiah.

I’m stitching thousands of words at the moment and they all belong to women. It’s a big project and it will take me a long, long time but it’s transforming me too.

Right now, it’s reminding me things like, the first person to name God is a slave woman. Isn’t that so beautiful? In the light of sexism and racism and all the awful things that people say about the rejected and the downtrodden, God, of all the universe, allows Godself to be named by a woman, a slave, sent out into the desert to watch her baby die.

Wherever your heart is at today. However you are struggling or rejected or looking at the tsunami of insurmountable opposition remember the One who has always held out hands, and noticed and listened and allowed the outsider to speak aloud the sacred name.

courage dear heart, courage

Miriam Jessie x