The Center for Leadership Excellence, in partnership with COSROW, is pleased to lift up the voices of women in ministry encouraging fellow women in ministry. Please enjoy this month’s Encouragement from Laura Wittman, pastor of The Mills Church, a new faith community in Rocky Mount. Anyone can sign up to receive these monthly emails here.
“My whole life I’ve been the “nerdy” kid who was too much into Star Wars and had no concept of what it meant to be “cool.” In high school it was especially difficult to be who I was, and I struggled with not fitting in or feeling like I was like everyone else. It didn’t help being the preacher’s kid who moved around all the time and never felt quite settled where I was. As I grew older, it became less of a struggle, and in large part because of one of my favorite pieces of scripture, Psalm 139:13-14.
Read Psalm 139:13-14:
You are the one who created my innermost parts;
you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb.
I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart.
Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.
Reflect: What I learned is that I didn’t need to always be so worried about what others thought. I learned that authenticity and just being myself would bring me all the belonging that I was looking for; my husband, my family, some of my closest clergy friends. By trying so hard to be something else, to fit the standards of other people, to be like my peers, left me feeling exhausted. Once I leaned into the fact that God had made me with intentionality, that I was knit together on purpose and with a pattern in mind, it made me realize that to go against that was to work against what God was weaving.
Take Action: Consider what is unique and beautiful about you. The things that you might be self-conscious about, might very well be the things that people love the most about you. Study the pattern that God knit you to be, even if it means being a little bit “weird” or nerdy. May the force be with you, always.
In partnership,
Center for Leadership Excellence and the Commission on the Status and Role of Women
Interested in further encouragement? Check out these upcoming events open to women clergy and laity alike.
UMW Book Club
March 13, April 11, May 9 and June 13, 2022
Healing and Hope Through History: In Celebration of Women’s History in North Carolina
March 16, 2022
Panel Discussion on the ERA and Voter Suppression
March 24, 2022
UMW Assembly
May 20, 2022