Today I’m doing something a bit different on the blog, thanks to Hännah Ettinger over at Wine & Marble, who suggested that we link up and share at least five unidentified thanks to those who have made 2013 a better, more whole, and more healing year for us. Frankly, after the week I’ve had (first car accident, heavy work load, minimal writing productivity, internet crazies) I could do with a bit of gratitude. Also, I’m fiercely protective Thanksgiving season and I refuse to get Christmasy before first giving thanks. So there. Here we go :

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1. At the beginning of the year, I got involved in an online discussion regarding a certain post (that shall not be named or linked to for the sake of everyone’s sanity.) One thing led to another, and basically, I had a mini meltdown on twitter, complete with subtweets and a call for Christian unity. #facepalm #NotMyProudestMoment. So this particular note of gratitude is to those that got caught in the crosshairs of my frustration, and I want to start by saying I’m sorry. I really regret it – both my opinions and my behavior. It was coming from a place of ignorance about a lot of different things and since then I’ve tried my damndest to shut up and listen to you. We don’t always agree, and I’m not very vocal either way, but it’s not because I’m not paying attention to you, it’s because I learned my lesson. Thank you for speaking up. Thank you for not letting me silence you. Thank you for not totally writing me off, and in some cases, for befriending me in spite of what happened.

2. As the only appropriate follow-up to Thank You No. 1, this is a thank-you to the people in my life who have walked with me through so many personal changes. A lot of what I believe about faith and politics have shifted in the last few years. I am deeply grateful to those of you who never treated me like a lost cause in my ignorance, who graciously offered me a new perspective, who heard out my doubts and frustrations and crazy questions, who continue to show me love and respect. Even if we never agree with each other on certain issues, you’ve taught me Grace.

3. For almost a year now we’ve been chatting to each other back and forth nearly every day about everything from the internets to birth control to career building to relationships, and I have to say it’s been a highlight of this season in my life. Thank you for letting me be vulnerable with you about the best and worst parts of me; thank you for being vulnerable with me about yours. We’re each going through so many personal transitions, but your friendship has been a steadfast place of comfort and encouragement. Whoever said that online friendships are fake is doing it wrong.

4. You’ve had a tough year, friend. But I’ve watched you flourish in it, too. My heart broke for you last fall, and again early this summer. We both know what it feels like to lose faith and trust for this whole hope thing, don’t we? And yet you continue to be brave and take risks and in case you haven’t noticed, you have community of women, a flock of beautiful birds, that have found a haven in your brave mama heart. I just want you to know how thankful I am for you, whom I consider a big sister in both faith and storytelling. Thank you for the moments we’ve shared of leaning into the hard places of our lives, talking about our fears, talking about our plans, talking about our dreams.

5. We don’t see each other or talk to each other every day or even every week, but we’ve been close friends for close to a decade now and your joyfulness, silliness, and go-get-’em attitude inspire me daily. You have always been there for me, even when I’m quiet, even when I’m angry, even when we lived together and I was forever leaving my dirty dishes in the sink without washing them off first. I lovelovelove you. Always.

6. Remember that day when you texted me the words to my favorite Shel Silverstein poem as an apology for that really ugly fight we had the day before? It’s been two years, and I still think about that moment every time I think about you and how much our relationship has changed. Your support means the world to me. I have a lifetime of thank-yous that I can’t list here, but this I can say : thank you for seeing me, for working hard with me to change our relationship, for saying you’re sorry and accepting my apologies too, and for always taking care of me the best that you know how. I love you.

Awhile back Sarah Bessey wrote this post, In Which I am Learning to Own My Authority. It was one of those posts that echoed in my hearts for days and weeks and months afterward. It sprang up in my thoughts whenever I came face-to-face with my self-doubt, calling me toward boldness.

“I’m a woman still learning how to walk in my authority as a daughter of the King. I’m not supposed to apologize for what God has shown me or done in my life. But here I am, dulling my voice, fitting the too-small box of God-breathed womanhood, shrugging off. […] After all this time, I still minimize the work and goodness and grace of God in my life out of fear. […] Because I am writing about a thorny issue, and because I am nervous about how it will be received, my fear was coming across in my tone more than I realized. And that tone – apologizing, fearful, ‘hey, here’s an idea…’ – was undermining the very message and intent of my work at its very core, disproving my very thesis.”

Her words resonate so deeply because they are my experience too. Like Sarah, I’ve begun to notice the subtle, deeply engrained habit of doubting God’s work in my life and my own ability to discern it.

Even six months ago, I was not comfortable with calling myself a feminist. I’ve loved the idea of feminism, I’ve loved the idea of women’s equality, I’ve written about it here and there for years as I’ve felt empowered to do so. But I would always shrink back from it, afraid that I would become the caricature of feminism that church and secular culture depict: shrill, man-hating, hell-bent on flipping the gender-hierarchy in women’s favor and destroying the nuclear family.

If I call myself a feminist, am I working against God’s will? Is it really not His desire that all people be treated as fully human, male and female, Jew and Gentile, slave and free? 

But I’ve learned so much about feminism from people like Sarah Bessey and Rachel Held Evans and Dianna Anderson and Hila Sachar and Danielle Vermeer and Emily Maynard, who have introduced me to other voices that have changed my understanding of both feminism and my faith. And the more I’ve learned about feminism, the more I’ve learned that my longing to see men and women work together, is God at work in my life. And I had been letting the fear and sexism of my culture (Christian and secular alike) tell me that I was not capable of discerning God’s work in my own heart.

My fear and doubt and insecurity over calling myself a feminist is symptomatic of patriarchy at work in my own life. Questioning my own authority is a product of abusive power dynamics. And it occurred to me, even amidst my wavering hope in the Church, that Jesus was never the one to silence or shame people for asking questions, male or female.

My conservative, evangelical upbringing did not give me a theological framework for engaging feminism, but that didn’t mean the theological framework didn’t exist.

The door has been flung wide open to express the doubt and hurt and frustration that I had been trying to hide away for so long. And I’ve found hope and joy for what my faith, my work, my relationships and my politics could be if I just stepped into my identity as God’s daughter, as equal and capable as His sons. There is so much I still don’t understand, so much I still don’t know about living this out in my life, but I believe that even learning to voice our questions in safe community with one another is an important part of debunking the false authority of patriarchal power structures. Those power structures tell us that asking questions is a form of weakness, but it is a form of strength. I don’t need to have it all figured out in order to call myself a feminist. I don’t need to have it all figured out to call myself a Christian.

Jesus Feminism is where I’ve found my voice to articulate my faith and my feminism in a new way, to engage them together, rather than holding them at odds.

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So I am my mother’s daughter : I am the daughter of strong female leadership. I am the daughter of a mother who worked a full time job, lived with breast cancer for 14 years, and was one of the first women to serve on the board of her American Baptist Church.*

I am married to a musician : I am the wife of a husband who is kind and creative in a time when our culture doesn’t value those qualities in men. I believe that patriarchal power structures hurt all of society, men and women alike, and my husband and I are working together to overcome that.

I am baptist born-and-raised : I am the child of a church that was very conservative and very evangelical, but also very loving and *willing to change when they felt God moving.

I am a millennial writer : I am a member of an “entitled” generation, who earned my degree and entered the job market in the middle of a recession, who has struggled through my fair share of cynicism toward the Church, and I am living out my calling as a writer both in my full-time job and in my creative endeavors.

And I am a Jesus Feminist. I am learning to be a feminist the way that Jesus is a feminist. Because I follow Jesus, I want to see God’s redemptive movement for women arch towards justice. And I am not afraid to say that this is how God is at work in my life.

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This post is in conjunction with Sarah Bessey’s Jesus Feminist synchroblog to celebrate the launch of her book. I received my copy in the mail this weekend and I’m already loving it. Wherever you are in your beliefs about gender roles or Christianity or both, I highly recommend it.