Samples from Wisdom Found

Below are samples of the stories from Wisdom Found: Stories of Women Transfigured by Faith edited by Lindsay Hardin Freeman. For more information or to order this book, click here.

Things my mother forgot to tell me

 Your feet get bigger. Did you know that? I didn't, until this past summer when I finally confessed to myself that that my size 7 shoes were too tight, and that I needed to move up to a size 7½. One day in passing, I mentioned this to my mother. And she said, ever so casually, "Oh, didn't I tell you that? As you get older, your feet get bigger."

My mother also forgot to tell me so many other things. Like how many different kinds of tears there are...sweet tears, salty tears, bitter tears and tearless tears. And laughter...the laughter at, the laughter for, the laughter with, and the deep, down-in-the-belly laughter that happens sometimes when I am by myself.

She forgot to tell me how hard I would cry when he left me, and then when he left me, and then when he left me. She also forgot to tell me how hard I would laugh, years later, about the time when he left me, and then he left me, and then —"Thank you, Jesus!" — when he left me.

But there's one thing that she didn't forget to tell me, and for this I will be eternally grateful. She remembered to tell me to pray.

So, thank you, God, for walking with me through the valleys and carrying me over the mountains. Thank you, God, for mothers, and grandmothers, aunts and sisters, and girlfriends who have — each in her own special way — taught me how to love, to never give up on myself, to always look up, and to never look back. And especially God, I thank you for having the vision of what it is to be...a woman.

—Westina Matthews

Between us

Glass ceiling

When I was eight, my mother gave me the awful news: I would not grow up to be the starting catcher for the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. Not because they were cursed or awful, nor because the Mets were so amazing, but because I was a little girl, and little girls did not play for the Chicago Cubs.

This was the first time my mother told me I couldn't be whatever I wanted to be. Always, she had encouraged me: You can grow up to do anything. Now, she added that devastating word: Except ...

It wasn't the last time someone told me no. For years, I was a newspaper editor. Working on the sports desk, I was told I couldn't possibly understand sports, even though I played, watched, and practically breathed them. I couldn't edit NASCAR, even though I was one of the few who knew the difference in carburetor lift between the Daytona and Talladega Superspeedways.

When I was ordained, I crashed into that glass ceiling again: You can't work for a woman rector, because there can't be two women at the altar. You can't be rector of a large parish, because those jobs go to men. You can't be a missionary in much of the world, because much of the Anglican world does not ordain women.

You can't... you can't... you can't...

I never listened to those voices, because I knew that God was calling me into these fields. I heard a clear call to "follow me," and I did, bumping and banging into those glass ceilings, sometimes smashing them.

All the voices were wrong. Except my mother's. She knew, long before I did, that being the starting catcher for the Chicago Cubs in the World Series was not my call after all.

—Lauren R. Stanley

Change and routine

I had to get to a quiet place to be able to breathe again, to feel the spirit move. City life, cable news, gym membership, fancy shoes: I was running on an adrenaline high that lasted years. But the gloss wore off, and I felt it — I was tired in my bones.

Every weekend I took the train out of the concrete, past the spendy towns, past the reservoirs, to a little farm. And I knelt in the dirt, astounded by life. Dark, fluffy dirt teeming with creatures, and the sprouting of seeds, climbing to the light. I wanted to be such a seed, to burst open, to flourish. The spirit was there, with me, as I dug, planted, watered, tended.

In the fields, among the crops, the gospel rang in my ears: Follow me. I had just spent most of a decade getting a degree, neatly arranging all the details of a career. Could I just turn and walk away? Could I release that ambition, that investment, those years? Could I "let the dead bury their own dead"? (Matthew 8:22).

I took the big leap, moved to the farm. And when I am on my hands and knees in the garden, the birdsong rings out over the cars rushing by. The rhythm of planting creates space in my brain. I breathe deep. I am in the flow.

Unless I'm not.

A year later: I find, to my disappointment, that I still worry, that I get frustrated, conflicted. Turns out that it takes work to stay in the flow, to be open to the spirit. I've got to make that quiet place, I've got to take those deep breaths. I've got to let go repeatedly. Transformation, it seems, is an everyday project.

—Erin Martineau

These are samples of the stories from Wisdom Found: Stories of Women Transfigured by Faith edited by Lindsay Hardin Freeman. For more information or to order this book, click here.