they gave me the world

Recently, Threads hosted a week of posts specifically curated for International Women's Day by Dr Clare Rush. One of them, entitled They Gave Me A Box, has been widely shared across social media. It's a poem describing the way the author experienced church and growing up in it as a young woman.

It just hasn't happened that way for me. If I was to rewrite this poem to tell my story it'd be called "They gave me the world"

For me, church has been a place where I learnt who I am, while being surrounded by amazing people with a great wealth of experience and wisdom between them. As I've grown up there have been plenty of wonderful people praying for me.

As a child in the baptist church where I grew up, women in leadership roles was just as common as men and I'm grateful for the role models. I've seen and heard countless fantastic (and terrible!) speakers, both male and female. It's always felt normal for me to see women in those positions as well as men.

I've been given opportunities to develop my skills, practice leadership, participate in all sorts of things alongside those more experienced than me, and through this I've been involved in all sorts of things in my home town, in the UK and around the world too. I've been encouraged, discipled and nurtured by men and women alike.

I've never felt like there were things I couldn't do because of being a woman. I realise what an incredible privilege this is. I know it happens. I know the blog below rings true for many women in the church, and actually many men too. But I also know from personal experience that this isn't an exclusive truth. My story isn't unique.

Because of the church I've been to places I'd never otherwise have been.
Because of the church I've had opportunities I wouldn't have been offered anywhere else.
Because of the church I've had experiences I wouldn't have had access to.
And these things have made me the person I am today.

They gave me the world...
... and I'm thankful.