In my conservative, evangelical background, girls were raised to believe that we weren’t as important as men. Only men got the “good” gifts, like leadership and teaching. Our job as women was to teach children’s Sunday school and bake casseroles for various functions. We were taught to be silent and submissive, and never to question “God’s order” of things.  

After marriage, my husband and I began attending a charismatic church where we were introduced to The 10 Lies the Church Tell Women by J. Lee Grady and Why Not Women? by Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM. Many of the Scriptures that had been used to teach submission were explained in the Greek, and they were not what we had been taught to believe.

We learned that Christ died to free women from every curse, even those brought on by the Fall (Gal. 3:13). God’s original plan for me was to co-lead and co-rule alongside my husband, and Christ died to restore that order (Gen. 1:26-28). For the first time in my life I felt affirmed—I was just as powerful and as important as a man! It took me a while to accept those truths. I felt rebellious just reading those books. "Submission" had been hammered in hard.

My husband had some un-learning to do, but with a minor in Women’s Studies, he was quick to champion me. He supported me as I led the prayer ministry at our church for seven years, designed an inner healing ministry (which turned out to be the most popular class at church), and eventually coordinated county prayer events under the National Day of Prayer. He now fervently backs women and violently opposes them marrying “below” themselves just to get a husband.

- Holly, 44, California, US