written by Rev. Kathy Manis Findley
Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.
Joel 2:12 (NRSVUE)
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I have been thinking about my ordination, since its anniversary draws near, March 29. I am a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) minister—thoroughly screened, vetted, bonafide, affiliated, a former foreign missionary, a retired pastor, and also a woman. So first I want to reminisce about National Women’s History Month, a great thing to celebrate! Google it.
Since we’re celebrating a few things, I want to celebrate the partnership between Baptist Women in Ministry (BWIM) and FBCX Macon. What a time for us, being Baptist women, while the world seems to be collapsing all around us! Women worry about things like that—division and violence and war and even the evil of smashing a friend’s Hershey Bar. It’s all so disheartening. Once in a while, though, I will spend time looking at people just trying to discover something good and solid. I have to say it’s a little disconcerting to see people refusing to “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”
What if the peacemaking and justice prophesied by Prophets Isaiah and Micah made a powerful change in the cosmos? I can hear you thinking about this and concluding that this kind of miracle won’t happen!
I joined BWIM in 1992! At my first meeting, I was elected vice-president. Scary! Following the vice-presidency, I was elected president, and served two terms. Over many years, Baptist Women in Ministry has been an FBCX partner. Our church’s support of BWIM has been constant.
I hope you will join us at one of many screenings across the country. You will delight in the documentary, “Midwives of a Movement,” to be held at FBCX, on March 22, 2024 at 6:30pm. You may even get angry! It is a wonderful history of a wonderful organization. You will see woman after woman facing patriarchy, mysogyny and discrimination. Suddenly, the things Leann Gunter Johns, Julie Long, I, and others have told you about the SBC won’t seem so outlandish. The SBC threw roadblocks everywhere, so that we would be shut out of our calling. Yes, roadblocks were everywhere! But God was also everywhere—behind me, in front of me, on my right and on my left. Maybe you and I can transform the season of Lent, together, and in the end look with awe at the pure, straightforward, sincere life Jesus shows us!
So I’ve been pondering . . . What if I could do just one spiritual thing during Lent? I decided that my one thing would be “to return to God with all my heart.”