I have been on a significant journey towards understanding Women’s Empowerment within me:

Lesson 1: the self discipline to GET UP—even when it’s hard

Lesson 2: the love to LIFT UP

Lesson 3: the power to RISE UP

This is my first lesson…

“Will you consider heading up our Women’s Empowerment group?”  

That was the question the Director of our local Immigrant and Refugee Center asked me, at a safe distance across her office, during the unprecedented pandemical summer of 2020.  

YES! and That’s CRAZY! and I have no idea what that means… all mixed into my teary-eyed, masked-face, foggy-glasses response.  What an awkward impression to make in an important work meeting—I couldn’t see clearly.  Feeling isolated during quarantine, my heart craved significance and being a part of things that are bigger than me, so I agreed to ponder her proposal. Contemplation for me usually involves key words, root words, related words—word clouds storming around in my brain.  I went home and scribbled empower across a blank page in my imagination and began to storm.

Empowered Women are Power-full

I don’t see myself as powerless, but I haven’t yet embraced powerful as one of the things that I am either. Attempting badass, I decided to lace up my thick-soled combat boots, and I’m still trying to break in the stiff fit.  I waffle between confident and clumsy, especially with a face mask and fogged up glasses.  

How badass can an already awkward, middle-aged mother of 3 even be?  

Mercy, grace, and gentle kindness.  I gravitate to these cozy words like I do towards a cup of chamomile tea at home in my fleece-lined slippers.  These are the soft places where I want to come alongside others.  But power, justice, and especially women’s empowerment—those words feel outside my zoning laws of comfort.  

Girls with Dreams Become Women of Vision

In the Fall of 2020, I eagerly gathered my first Women’s Empowerment group together.  I offered each woman flowers that uniquely reflected their presence in the group.  Collectively, we represented four distinct ethnolinguistic groups.  We spent time expressing our dreams with each other in our shared language of simple English.  Some women had home businesses, some were thinking about fleeing unsafe environments, and some longed to see loved ones they had been separated from for decades. In that precious space together, we soared.

The next day, I came down with a significant, positive case of COVID-19.  It felt like a slap down.  

How can I lift anyone up if I am inadvertently sharing a virus that could land them down and out?

Empowered Women Don’t Give Up on Important Things

When I get nervous about things in life I can’t control, I take on a physical challenge that is the right amount of impossible and achievable to suit the situation—like climbing a 14,000-foot Rocky Mountain or learning how to ride a ripstick.  Women’s Empowerment felt like a ripstick-kind of challenge.  Rip-sticking made me feel young and tenacious, but it also terrified me a little.  I needed suitable attire for such a venture—a safety helmet with spunk and my reliable running shoes. 

Sunday afternoons I would take my ripstick and my most inspiring playlist and head for the river trail.  I feared falling.  But I feared failing even more. All this was on my mind as I went speeding down a subtle slope.  And then I fell.  Ouch!  My wounded spirit immediately looked around to make sure no one saw that.  My wounded knee wasn’t so bad.

I get knocked down, but I get up again…

Chumbawamba

Note to self: Add this song to my playlist.

GET UP:

My first lesson in being empowered is being persistent and not giving up on things that are important.  Even when I’m scared.  And even when it hurts.  I got back on my ripstick with my bruised areas and finished out my Sunday adventure.

Humility is learning to live for the sake of others.  I have been both haunted and inspired by this definition.  I couldn’t fully grasp what this meant in my life.  I was more preoccupied with falling and failing and the differences between them, that I was not learning the art of lifting.