Woman Evolve with Sarah Jakes Roberts - Well Said

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

Never trusting her voice could add value, host Sarah Jakes Roberts dedicates this solo episode to women who made history by daring to use theirs. Staying quiet after you've been wronged or when you've done wrong may seem safe. But how many of you know that pain is never really silent? It longs for an audible expression. So much so that SJR looks back at women in history who had every reason to remain silent — we're talking Sojourner Truth, Tarana Burke, and the Samaritan Woman at the Well — all to give you the language you need. To all the quiet ones holding back, imagine your voice going rogue: what would it say, who would it move, and how would it impact the world?

This is Sarah Jakes Roberts and you are listening to the Woman Evolve podcast. It is Women's History Month and I am excited to bring you a very special series of conversations about women who made history, but most importantly, the history of the women who made history and how that applies to our own history and the ways that we may need to go rogue and evolve in order for us to step up. into the intentional transformation that is assigned to our lives. And by transformation assigned to our lives, I certainly mean our own personal transformation, but I also believe that we are here to transform the world and the spaces that we live in. Part of what keeps us from doing that, though, is that we get stuck. We get trapped within ourselves. And when we get trapped within ourselves, it's hard to see. I'm actually working, first of all, if you know me, which some of you Some of you don't. Let me tell you something. Even though you're listening to me on a podcast, speaking is not really my thing. I love words. I love writing so much and I only write when I feel like I have something that is worth as it relates to books. I only write books that I feel like are worth me going through the system of putting a book out. Because I love writing so much, I never wanted it to become.

something that was like systematized and you know there's a process of editing and publishing and marketing and producing a book that if you aren't writing something that you feel the world needs or something that you are absolutely in love with and want to share with other people it can drain the love out of it and so I have to love a concept so much that I am willing to go through the process of getting a book into the world and I feel like I have an idea that kind of speaks to what I'm going to share in today's episode, which is ultimately about us getting free from the limits and the, I'm going to say, voices that tell us to shrink, that tell us to be small. Sometimes those voices are internal, sometimes they are external.

But for today, I want to talk about women who made history by using their voice and how you can become one of those women who learn how to use their voice. to create a little bit of texture for this though, I want to be honest and let you know that I have not always been a woman who uses her voice. I know I just said that speaking is not my thing and it ain't, but I have never really trusted that my voice could add value. And as a result of not trusting that my voice could add value, part of the reason why it is abnormal for me to speak is because it is, it's me going rogue from insecurities that I settled into. as a part of my identity for a long time. I love this idea of going rogue, and part of it is because it forces us to challenge what part of myself has been formed by fear and insecurity,

and how do I break free from it? I believe that fear and insecurity has a source, and I believe just as goodness has a source, and God is good, that fear, insecurity, anything that limits us sin, that it too has a source. and I believe that that source is the devil, the enemy, lucifer, darkness, whatever you want to call it.

And the problem with us becoming comfortable in our fear and our insecurity is that it makes us a servant to the enemy's plans for our lives. Now, if you have been around church or heard scripture before, there's this scripture that we use all the time, and it's in Jeremiah, and it's the Lord talking to Jeremiah, and in Jeremiah, he says, for I know the plans that I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you to give you a future and a hope. So God has plans for your life, but guess what? God's not the only one that has plans for your life.

There's a real enemy that has plans for your life, plans to try and detour and thwart God's plans. And so there's another scripture where it says that for this purpose, this son of God was manifest to destroy the works of the enemy. You know, it'll be interesting. Whenever I start talking, I just be, okay, I want to look up that word works. Whenever I'm looking up a word, I use a concordance, which there's an app. There's a free app that you can download. It's called Strong's Concordance. That's the one I use, but there are plenty out there.

And I use that concordance. And if there's a word that I like want to understand, you just look it up on the concordance and you can see the original translation. and part of why that is so helpful is as, you know, if you've ever learned another language, you know that there are some words that don't, they hit different in the original language versus in the translated language. And so I like looking up the original language

because it just hits different. Okay, so I am looking this up. The verse that I am talking about is in 1 John, chapter 3, verse 8. and that word works in the Greek means toil as an effort, the acts deed, doing labor work. So for this purpose, the son of God was manifested that he might destroy the labor of the devil. So the enemy is at work.

And the son of God was manifested to stop what the enemy is, the plans, his work, what he has intended to do. And so I believe that part of the reason why we experienced, fear and insecurity is because the enemy wants to, that's the work of the enemy meant to keep us from stepping into the fullness of who we are in God. So with that frame in mind, I want to share my story first about not being able to use my voice at a time when I was surrounded by people, but I literally did not have the space or the safety to, or even maybe the language to even say where I was. See, part of the thing is that people feel like, you know, you're not using your voice, you're not using your voice, but you can become so afraid, so traumatized, so ashamed that you don't even have language. Like, if I could use my voice, I would, but I don't even have the words to give this language. And I feel like this is the season that I was in, probably from the age, I mean, 16s into 20s, but there was a,

time particularly around 16 when I was two years after having my son and I felt after having my son that I did not deserve to feel lost or in pain. See, when things happen to you, I feel like there's more permission for you to experience the vulnerability of being a victim. Oh, this is so good. I feel like I'm like healing even as I'm sharing this with you all. It feels like there's a compassion that people have towards you. Now, you may not want to feel it. And that's, you know, a whole other situation. But there's a compassion that is available to you when you have been victimized in some way. But when you have done something that is your quote unquote fault, something that you should have known better, it robs you from this. feeling of being able to experience compassion or receiving compassion. And so my mentality at that time is that you don't have the right to be hurt. You brought this onto yourself. You've inflicted pain on other people. So your pain doesn't matter. So my pain had to be silent. But pain is never silent.

And so at 16 years old, I would have like an aunt or something, keep my son on the weekend. my sister had a car and she would like maybe this I'm really telling you on my business she would go to church on the weekend like maybe she would have you know she was like a part of the prayer team the wreck team

they called it the rec team and they was you know wrecking the devil's camp and I was in the devil's camp amen everything's fine but so she dropped her off at church I wasn't supposed to be driving I would take her car I would go to the mall.

And when I tell you, I would go to the mall looking for attention. Anyone, like, will someone see me? Will a boy look at me? Will a boy like me? And if a boy looked at me, I mean exchanging numbers, maybe going into the bathroom and doing something, going into a car, and doing something. And, like, that was my rhythm. That was my pattern.

That was my routine. And there's a time that I would have told this story and I would have felt so much shame. But now I'm just thinking about just how much pain I was in. My pain wasn't allowed to speak, but it was still acting on my behalf because when pain is silenced, it finds a way to act on its behalf. It has to be soothed. It has to be acknowledged. And so sometimes our pain is creating more pain in our lives because we're looking for

things to numb it. And in the process of numbing it, we end up making it worse. It's almost as if you've broken a limb in your body and you're in so much pain that you're like, you know what, I can't get it fixed. I have to live with this brokenness. And so I'm just going to take something that makes me forget the pain. And let's say there's an Advil somewhere that's strong enough to make you forget the pain. And so you start living and walking and running as if the leg isn't broken because you can't feel the pain.

But just because you can't feel the pain doesn't mean that the brokenness isn't there. And when the medicine wears off, the brokenness is worse. because you never really acknowledged and fixed the problem. That was my cycle. Over and over again, I did things to numb the pain, and the things that were meant to numb the pain actually made the brokenness worse.

And so I was just sharing with my husband the other day that if I could have spoken then, if my voice had not been silenced, then I would have said, I'm so hurt, I'm so lost, I'm so ashamed, I'm so afraid that I can't.

fix this, that I'll never recover from this, that I have damaged my relationship with God, that I have damaged my relationship with my family, that I'm damaged. I would have said all of those things if I knew to say them, if I had a space to try and figure out that language, but I didn't. And there are women who are listening to this, who understand exactly what it feels like to not be able to give language to a pain that you're experiencing, maybe the only thing you know right now is numb, because numb is easier than feeling and you don't know where along the way you became numb,

but there is a part of you that knows that it is time for you to use your voice. And in using your voice, for me, I really feel like it starts with acknowledging that the voice that you want to use outside, of you starts first with you acknowledging the voices that are within you. Just because a person that's silent on the outside doesn't mean that they have silence on the inside. There are thoughts in their mind. There are battles that they face, voices from other people, voices from fear, voices from shame that exist within themselves. And so don't allow someone silence to make you think that they actually live in silence. So here is the goal. The goal,

The goal is for us to silence the voices within us so that we can hear clearly what voice needs to come out of us. And so how do I silence the voices within me? Silencing the voices within me starts with not ignoring them, but taking the time to hear them. And in the process of taking the time to hear them, I can understand. the messages that I have received and whether or not they are messages that I want to accept. Right now, your mind may be like your mailbox after going on vacation for a few weeks. And you come back and you take all of the mail out of the mailbox. And you've got all kinds of furniture, local newsletter, postcards, bills, checks,

all of these things that you need to sort through, right? and you have to sort through them to decide what am I going to keep, what do I need to take care of, what do I need to cash in on? And I want you to consider the voices in your head like that, that over time you have received lots of voices into your head. And just because those voices are in your head doesn't mean that they have to stay there. So first of all, I want you to understand that just because you have received them doesn't mean that they have to take up residence. We're going to do, we're going to clean house. We're going to clean those voices out of your head. and it's going to start with us just taking the time.

So how do I identify the voices as you're going throughout your day and maybe someone says something about you that is good, bad, and different? Maybe you are getting ready to do something for the first time and there's a voice, don't do it. There's a voice that says, oh, you'll never be able to survive it. Maybe the voice says you got this. I want you to start taking note of those voices. ultimately we're talking about thoughts, right?

And I want you to start taking note of those thoughts. And then I also want you to consider the tone of those thoughts. Because when we consider the tone of those thoughts, they also help us to understand where they came from. You know, when I was growing up, it's like not what you said is how you said it. Watch your tone. Watch your tone. I want you to take note of the tone in which you hear certain voices. Was that said in love?

Like, does that thought feel like you feel like you? it is dripped in love? Does it feel like it is dripped in fear, anxiety, nerves? Let's start to pay attention to the tone in which you receive those thoughts. So having said that, I want to talk about some voices that have been very powerful in the earth. These voices have made history because they allowed themselves to break free from the voices of trauma, of culture, of society in order for them to offer an expression audibly, literally audibly by using their voices that really changed and shift the way that other people hear and speak. There is one woman for sure that many of you may be familiar with, and her name is Sojourner Truth.

She is a woman who was born into slavery in 1797. Her name was Isabella Bomfrey, but she changed her name. She was sold multiple times. she was physically abused, she was separated from her child. She couldn't read. She had no platform. She had every reason to remain quiet. But she gave one of the most powerful speeches in 1851 at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. She stood and delivered what would become just a famous speech that you may be familiar with. Maybe not. So this is a little bit of a history lesson. And it was called ain't I a woman. I want to read you just a clip from the ain't I a woman speech because it speaks

to the reality of what she experienced at that time and what it took for her to use her voice. In order to understand the true power of this speech, we have to contextualize the fact that as a black woman during this time and era, for her to even be speaking out was prolific and dangerous. and for her to be challenging systems that were violent towards particularly black women who were not silent. And honestly, probably white women who weren't silent because they were upsetting the system of patriarchy and oppression that had kept them oppressed. In order for her to use her voice, she had to defy those voices in her head. The voices that said, don't do it. Be quiet. I love that there's a part in her speech that speaks to the reality that she was confronting systems and said that women should not have rights and women should be silent.

She said it towards the end of this speech. And then that man back there in the black, that man back in the black says that women can't have as much rights as men because Christ wasn't a woman. Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? from God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with him. Now, if the first woman that God ever made was strong enough to turn this world upside down all alone,

these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again. And now they is asking to do it and you men better let them. Can you imagine what they wanted to do with this little woman who was saying that the men better let these women have their rights. First of all, she must have had to silence the voices of oppression and system.

How do we silence them again? She must have been able to identify that what they're saying, what they are expecting of me, the silence that they are imposing on me is in direct contradiction with another voice in my head that is telling me that the same God who used a woman then to create Christ could use a woman now to create liberty and new ways of being for women in present day. She must have been able to organize the voices in her head to separate them, categorize them, bring them into submission so that the voice outside of her could add value to the moment that she was living in. This makes me so excited because if we aren't careful, we'll think,

well, maybe that was just the voice of Sojourner Truth, that it doesn't apply then. But then I think about women like Tarana Burke. and Tarana Burke must have had a similar experience. She also experienced abuse and oppression, and she started using a hashtag Me Too in 2006, and it was a grassroots healing movement in which women were able to use their voice when they could have been silenced by shame, silenced by their abuse, silenced by protecting their abusers or protecting the culture of their families and communities. She dared to give women words.

She gave them language. Isn't that something that each of us could do if we were willing to think beyond the thoughts that we have received from other people and to dare to ask God, where is your voice in the midst of it all? What has come from you and what has come from the enemy? And most importantly, what is it that you want me to say and speak in this moment? Taranenberg then gave words to someone else. Oh, that gives me chills because I believe that that is the most powerful thing that happens when we use our voice. we give other people language. We help them to walk out of their own oppression,

to walk out of their own silence by giving them words to step into that embody what they have experienced. Tarana Burke did this when she created the Me Too movement. These are two women who made history by using their voices. The history of the women who made history is that they were oppressed from

abuse, they were oppressed from systems that challenge them to not use their voices to stay silent. But the fact that they use their voices is why we know who they are today. And so it challenges me to offer you an opportunity to consider the voices that exist within your head. What is the history that has created the silence that you experience? And what is the, the destiny that God has for you. I want you to consider from this place of devotion in John 4, Jesus goes to this woman at the well. He goes and he visits this woman in Samaria. And what's interesting about Jesus going to visit this woman in Samaria is that Jesus had no business going to Samaria. He goes out of his way. The scripture tells us that he tells his disciples that he must,

he needed to go through Samaria. So he leaves Judea. He's headed to Galilee. But on the way he makes a detour, he goes into Samaria. If I can offer you a little bit of history about this woman who made history at the well, is that for that time for Jesus as a Jew to be dealing with the woman in Samaria was culturally, ethnically inappropriate. We talk a lot about racism and whether or not racism existed in the Bible.

This is not an apples-to-apples comparison, but just for the sake of me helping you to understand exactly what's happening at this moment in scripture, I need you to understand that Samaritan Jews, Samarians were not supposed to have any dealings with Jews. Part of the reason is because there was a belief that Samaritans at the time had diluted the Jewish faith by adding in all of the additional polytheistic forms of worship. And so they had all of these different gods and all of these different religions that they had mixed into Judaism. And so the Jews at that time in an effort to maintain their holiness, their separation, because scripture said over and over again in the Torah to make sure that the Jews maintain their holiness,

that they maintain to be holiest, to be set apart to God. And so to maintain their distinction as being set apart for God, they couldn't worship other gods. It's in Kings. If you really want to do a deep dive on this, which you may not. I could just be rambling. There's a section in Kings. This is so random.

Y'all just help. Just go with me. My Bible, like my childhood Bible that's all marked up, the binding is coming off of it. So I had to send it in to get repaired and it's got all my highlighters and notes in it. So I'm using like a new Bible that's just fresh off the press. but it's in Kings, I would tell you exactly where I can look it up actually. Let me do, do, do, do, too. So in Second King, 17 verses 33 through 34, it talks about the Samaritans, and it says,

they feared the Lord yet serve their own gods, according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away. To this day, they continue practicing the former rituals. They do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances or the law and commandment, which the Lord had commanded the children of children of children. Jacob whom he named Israel, with whom the Lord made a covenant, and trying to say, you should not fear the gods. Okay, so it goes on to saying it says,

and to this day they continue in that act. And so it says like they fear the Lord, yet serve their own gods. So they didn't really fear the Lord. And so that was the connotation in which Samaritan Jews existed at this time. And so Jesus really technically should not have been talking to a Samaritan at all. There should have been a distance from Samaritans. But then you add the fact that she is a woman.

then we really begin to understand that this is a woman who Jesus should have no dealing with, and yet he goes out of his way to have this moment with her. Why does he go out of his way to have this moment with her? Part of the reason why I believe that Jesus goes out of his way to have this moment with her is one, we have to recognize that when we see Jesus moving and functioning in his ministry, that he's helping us to understand his character and who he is. He's helping us to understand that he will cross the line of culture. He will cross the line of culture. He will cross the lines of prejudice. He will cross the lines of what is segregation so that he can have connection with people who may have been cast away or who may be considered cultural outcast.

He does not care about the cultural. He went rogue. Boom, Shakalaka. He went rogue. He broke the rules to save the soul. He broke the rules of the custom and of the culture because those rules were not relevant to his call and his mission that he received from God. And so he goes out of his way. He goes to Samaritan as to see the Samaritan woman. And the Samaritan woman is going to draw water at a time of day that is unusual. So at the time when you would go to draw water, usually women went in the morning or in the evenings because it was cooler.

And so she's going in the middle of the day. And she's going in the middle of the day. It speaks to us that there must have been something about her that made her not feel like she could be around other groups of women, that she may have had an experience that made her believe that it was better that she be silent, that she disappeared, that she not function with other women.

And so she goes at a time of the day that will allow her to remain silent. Isn't it funny how we fix our customs, our movement, the way that we show up in the world to adjust to our need to be silent, our need to be invisible in order to survive because at the end of the day, isn't silence, our desire for silence, another form of us being invisible. And this Samaritan woman found a way to be invisible.

And she was comfortable being invisible. She learned how to function being invisible. She didn't need any disruptions to her invisibility. but here comes Jesus. Here comes Jesus going out of his way to see a woman who's going out of her way to not be seen. I'd be asking myself like,

I want to fall more in love with Jesus. Like I love Jesus. I grew up in church and I'm learning to have my own relationship with Jesus. And so I'm always kind of like a change. when I am relating to scripture. Like, what does it mean to fall in love with Jesus? And if you have ever fell in, especially like,

can we keep it a thousand in here? It's like, you're asking me to fall in love with like a historical character who I really cannot relate to at all who die for my sins. Like there are some of us, seven years old, fell in love with Jesus. Others of us have had to work, right?

And so I'm always like, what is there, what can I know more about Jesus to help me fall in love with who Jesus is? not because of what other people say about him or what other people know about him. Like, I want to know Jesus for myself. And so we get a glimpse into who Jesus is in this moment that Jesus goes out of his way to see someone who's going out of her way to be unseen. That says to me that we have a Jesus who knows what we really need.

There's nothing like that friend when you say like, oh, I'm good. I'm okay. And they're like, no, you're not, girl, I'm going to bring you some ice cream. No, you not. let's get out of the house. That's who Jesus is to this woman in that moment. I know how you're showing up for other people. I know how you're functioning. I know what your routine has been, but I know what you really need. And I'm going to give you what you really need, even when you don't know how to ask for it. Man, I wish I could have had an encounter with Jesus when I was at that mall just looking for love in all the wrong places. But Jesus came and saw about me when I needed it the most. But man, if my heart could have been turned toward Jesus in that moment, if I could have had that encounter the way that this woman had that encounter, I probably wouldn't be talking to you.

So I'm going to let that go. But Jesus came to see about her. It must have been at a critical moment. And part of me reconciling my relationship with Jesus is like, you know, you've heard me like, Jesus, why didn't you come when I was in that moment? But I think that there's a critical moment for conversion. I probably couldn't have been converted then. Jesus has a way of allowing us to have an encounter with him at a time when the encounter can turn into transformation,

where that conversion can turn into full transformation. So Jesus goes to see about this woman. And there is something that is said in their exchange that I believe gave this woman permission to begin using her voice. He begins to engage her. and he asked her for a cup of water. He says, give me a drink. So he gets her into a space where she's practicing using her voice.

The first thing she says, and I have to do a little bit of digging to understand how she knew that he was a Jew, but she says to him, how is it that you being a Jew ask a drink for me as a Samaritan woman? For the Jews have no dealings with it. You already know what it is.

I don't even know why you're talking to me. This is like, let's just make it segregation, in 1960s, 1950s, and like a white man comes up to, well, maybe I'll do it the other way around because I can see a white man coming up to a black woman being like, give me a drink, may it very much so gave, you know, do what I say. But if we flip it the other way, ooh, and a black man went up to a white woman and was like, give me some water. She'd probably been like, excuse me?

Why? How in the world are you asking? me for something to drink. And Jesus says back to this woman, if you knew who I was, the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink, you would have asked me and I would have given you living water. So in that moment, he begins to reveal himself to this woman. He begins to reveal his identity to this woman. And this woman, you know, I think she's intrigued. She's trying to figure it out like, okay, like, sure, I could give you something to drink, but like to be, you don't even have, you don't have anything to draw with. Like, this isn't the kind of well that you can just reach your

arm in. This is a deep whale. Mind you, mama's in there talking to a deep whale. Imagine, imagine the gag of you talking to a deep whale, telling the deep whale that he don't have nothing to draw water with. Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well and drink from it himself as well as his son and his livestock. And Jesus said to her, whoever drinks of this water that I have, whoever drinks of this water that you're getting out of this well is going to thirst again, but whoever drinks have the water that I shall give him will never thirst,

but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. So check it. This whale that Jesus is offering this woman a drink from doesn't just quench your thirst. It makes you a whale. Okay, wait a minute. So he's engaging in conversation with this woman, and he's saying that I want you to understand that I have something to give you that is going to change your insides.

It's going to change what exists within your insights. This is what happens when we are in relationship with Jesus. We don't just encounter Jesus and experience him from the outside looking in. We are offered an opportunity to invite what's on the outside into our insights to transfer. form our insights. You're not just going to drink from this well, but this well is going to become in you a water springing up. So I'm just, I want to be super practical for those of you who are listening and like, but what does that mean? It means that you are going to experience the spirit of God and the spirit of God is then going to come alive inside of you. And that

spirit of God that comes alive inside of you is going to give you everlasting life. It's going to be a fountain of water that never runs dry. You will never be thirsty again if you allow the Spirit of God to exist inside of you. Now we're talking about a reorientation. This is a woman who knows a thing about being thirsty because later on in the text we see that Jesus, it's like he pivots the conversation and out of nowhere. She's like, you know, okay, I'm down. Give me the water. Oh, this is so good to me. She's like, okay, I'm down, what's up? Like, where's the cup of water? And I'm ready for it.

Like, I'm here. And he goes, go call your husband and come here. Wait a minute. Now you're talking about water. I'm trying to not be thirsty again. Now you're talking about my husband. She's like, I don't have a husband. And Jesus, like, you have well said that I have no husband.

What does Jesus do in this moment? He gets her thirsty. He gets her to a place where she's hungry for this water that he's talking about, that this water that will become a well inside of her. Now she's ready for it. She's looking for it. And now that she is positioned for the hunger and she's ready for it, he then draws her attention to the area of her life where the well is going to be dug. Oh, I wish I could say that real good. He, in order for this well to really be deep enough to become a spring and a fountain inside of her, it has to touch the deep part of her pain. I'm about to bring a full circle. It has to touch the deep part of her pain. It has to touch the deep part of her pain. And in order for it to touch the deep part of her pain, he's got to talk about the area of her life where she has been trying to numb herself, where she's been trying to cover her brokenness, her loneliness, her pain, whatever those repeated decisions are that have made her feel isolated.

He goes, that's where I want to dig the well. This is why it is important for us to not just numb our pain, but to allow our pain as difficult as it is to come alive inside of us, because when the pain comes alive inside of us, it allows the Holy Spirit an entry point for the well, for us to have a deep well. This is why some people end up becoming religious. It's not that they don't have an encounter with Jesus. It's not that they don't drink from this well. It's that they don't allow the well to be dug in the deep places of their pain. Some of us want to meet Jesus when we have it all together in the place where we have no insecurity, where we have confidence, where we have no fear, where we have no abandonment. We're like,

yes, that's where I want to be in relationship with Jesus. But guess what? If we allow ourselves to be in relationship with Jesus from the place of our strength, we will have a shallow well. But the Lord wants to give us a deep well. In deep wells are dug in the places where life has hit us to our core. Jesus goes straight to the core of this woman's experiences because that's where he wants to dig the well. I don't know where you have been silenced. I don't know where you have had to numb your pain.

I don't know where you have been convinced that it is better that you say nothing, that you be invisible, that you disappear than it is for you to admit that you're hurting, you're in pain, that you have something to say, something to offer the world. I don't know where you receive those messages from, but one thing I know for sure is that if you are going to experience destiny, it's going to require a confrontation with your history. And if you're going to have a confrontation with your history, it's not so that you can stay in pain.

It's not so that you can be tormented by your past. It's so that the presence of God can meet you in that place of pain and together his strength can be made perfect in your weakness. When Jesus has this encounter with the woman and the woman says to him, I have no husband, he says to her, you have well said, you have well said, I have no husband. That word well, when I look it up, is no coincidence, right? I would love to tell you that it's like well, like the well he was sitting on, but it's not. But I don't think that it's thereby coincidence.

I want you to start understanding that you, Lord help me say this real good, that when you speak from the place of your truth, when you speak from the place of your honesty, when you speak from the place that maybe even makes you feel shame, that you have well said, that you have said it in such a way that a well can be dug. This is the place. X marks the spot.

That's where the honesty is. That's where the truth is. That word well in the Greek, it just means honestly. You have honestly said, in another translation it says good. That was good for you to say that. That was truth. You needed to speak your truth. And when you speak your truth, it allows me space,

to experience God's truth in the place of my truth. You are not benefited by staying silent if your silence is keeping your truth inside of you. That doesn't mean that you have to have a microphone and blast it from the rooftops. That doesn't mean that you have to share it with your family members and make them co-sign it.

But to be able to say it to yourself, to be able to say it to God, is the place of healing. It's the place of unity. it is the place where you begin to allow your voice to go rogue. You see, because silencing it within yourself means that you also silence it in your relationship with God. And if God wants to bring you healing in the place where you have been silenced,

if God wants to bring you visibility in the place where you have settled for invisibility, it is going to require you to use your voice. and in using your voice, I need you to understand that transformation takes place. That where we once felt shame, we begin to experience compassion. Where we once felt bitterness, we begin to experience peace. I want to challenge you to be like the women who made history by being someone who knows how to well said your truth, who knows how to speak well, who knows how to listen well, who knows how to dialogue with God well.

Imagine with me, if you will, had these women never spoken up. They instead decided to use their voices. And in using their voices, they birthed revolutions. The revolution of you is being silenced right now. And maybe you know what silenced it. maybe you don't. But I want to challenge you to not just celebrate the women who made history, but to dig within your own history. And to begin to question, when did silence become survival? When did silence become protection? Was it at home? Was it in a leadership room? Was it in a marriage?

Because if you think that your silence is protecting you from rejection, from retaliation, from shame, then you really don't trust that God can protect you. Yes, God may correct you when using your voice. And Lord, have I had to trust that using my voice doesn't mean sometimes we use our voice and we see it as a monologue. It is very much so dialogue. I use my voice. I speak from my place of truth and honesty. But I do so recognizing that there's another voice that is a part of this conversation. And that is the voice of the Holy Spirit that is going to lead me in. guide me. So I want to ask you this question, and I want it to be something that you marinate on and ask yourself, what does it mean for your voice to go rogue? What would it mean for you to stop

editing truth to keep people comfortable? What would it mean for you to name harm without apologizing for it existing? What would it mean for you to stop spiritualizing everything? Like, God's just going to take care of it and I'm just going to be humble. I'm not going to going to say anything, what would it mean for you to admit that things hurt you, that things confused you, that things disappointed you? Even in your relationship with God, God can handle the fullness of your voice. You don't have to bring your voice to God in a way that is without question and without doubt. God wants to hear all of those things. Jesus can handle them. Jesus consistently restored the voices of women. We saw him do it with the bleeding woman who had the issue of blood for

12 years. We see him do it with the Samaritan woman. We see him do it with the woman caught in the adultery who was publicly shamed. He asked the woman to look around and say, who accuses you? And she saw in that moment, no one did. Jesus is into your voice, into the restoration of your voice. So it is no wonder that what he was doing for women in scripture, we see him doing throughout history with other women and that he creates spaces for them to use their voices to correct systems of oppression and silent that have kept women silent for too long. So I need you to identify where you learn to be quiet. And I want you to begin to categorize what is wisdom, what is good as it relates to these voices in my head and what's fear and who benefits from me believing these voices in my head?

because the voices that we follow are the voices that we worship. And the voices that we worship dictate our destiny and our future. And then I want you to practice using your voice. Like I said, use it with yourself first. Use it in your relationship with God. But if God has placed people in your life that are safe places, maybe they're therapists, maybe they're friends, maybe it's a small group,

I want you to practice using your voice there. I tell people, oh, my brother, my best friend, they're both single. And they're not together. What a tragedy. But they're both single. And the other day they were at my house. And they were saying that when you live alone, sometimes you don't speak for like days. Like if you're working remotely and you're ordering everything online and you don't leave the house. And I think we were just coming out of the, we had like a little ice storm here in Dallas. And my friend was like, sometimes I just like just start talking to myself out loud. Because I just want to make sure that I can use my voice.

And my brother was like saying, he was like, there have been moments where I didn't use my voice until I got on a Zoom and I had to clear my throat. I want to take that practical analogy and help you to understand that when you begin to use your voice, it may be shaky at first. It may not be bold and courageous. And a lot of times we think to ourselves, if it can be bold and courageous, then I'm not going to use it at all. That is not how I want you to approach this. I need you to understand that it may be shaky, that there may be moments where, you know, know, you don't use the right words or you say something and it's heat. You came in hot. Okay. And it needs to be, it needs to be massaged. It needs to be altered. It needs to be

compassionate. It needs to be grace-filled. But you can never get your voice refined if you continue to keep it silence. And so I want to challenge you to begin using your voice in those safe spaces where you have the opportunity to correct it, to refine it so that you can practice using it in other places to advocate for yourself to help others, but maybe to be like Taranenberg and to give language to people who need it themselves. So practice low stakes courage where you begin speaking up in safe spaces so that you have the ability to speak up in big ways and intentional ways. If we're serious about discipleship, then I need you to understand that your voice matters. In Romans 10, it talks about us confessing with our mouth. There is a direct connection.

and our relationship with God and our ability to use our voice. We have to use our voice in this world. And we hear so many voices that, listen, I'm one of them who be thinking to myself. You know, I'm still trying to figure out when I'm getting back on social media. The problem is now, like, I can tell that I'm out in space in my life where I'm like, I could just never be on social media again and I'd be so fine. I just feel so safe. And yet I recognize that I have a responsibility to use my voice.

in a way that gives God the glory that meets people in places of maybe insecurity and low self-esteem like I have been in and to reveal to them what I know about Jesus as it relates to restoration and breakthrough and grace. And so I'm trying to get over myself right now. So I'm going to be back on the socials one day. Just stay focused. Here's the thing. There's a direct connection between us using our voice and how we show up in the world

and what God wants to do through our language and through our voice. Revelation says we overcome by the word of our testimony. We have to use our voice. So if the enemy has been attacking your voice, the enemy has been making you believe for some reason that you're better off silent, you're better off invisible, that you're better off not making noise at all.

I think it's because the enemy knows that you're actually a woman who's destined to make history. And when you're a woman who is destined to make history, you can suspect that the enemy is going to convince you that your voice doesn't matter. But let this podcast and this series serve as a reminder to you that we are not just women who make history. We are women who step into destiny and we do so by using our voice.

I can't wait to share with you over the next three weeks the history of the women who made history and what that says to us in present day about our own history and what we have to overcome, how we must go rogue, in order to step into death. destiny. I want to pray for you though. Maybe there has been something that I said during the podcast that has challenged you in the area of using your voice. Maybe it has made you consider ways that you have allowed yourself to be silenced, but you feel that it's time for you to begin navigating those voices in your head so that you can clear your throat for the voice that is meant to flow through you, the voice of God that is meant to show up and to establish things in the earth.

We need now more than ever sons and daughters who are willing to prophesy to speak the inspired word of God in a world that has a lot of noise, but not a lot of voices who are leading those to change. Holy Spirit, we need you. We invite your presence into our hearts. into our minds, into our pain, our brokenness, our confusion, our disorientation. We just ask that you would invade our being, that you would consume our hearts and our minds with a search for anything that's not of you. Lord, I ask that you would begin to highlight for those who are listening, the voices in their head, that you would help them to understand that there are some voices.

that they have accepted that are not a reflection of what you believe about them. And as they begin to bring those voices into captivity, into submission and obedience to you, God, I pray that you would speak a better word, that you would speak a word that lifts their head, that you would speak a word that heals them in the areas where life attempted to break them, that you would then allow them to confess with their mouth what you have done, the well that you have dug inside of them, that they would become a well for those who need them the most. God, I pray right now that even as someone is listening, and maybe they've never confessed that Jesus is their Savior, maybe they don't even fully understand what that means, but we recognize that you came, that whosoever believes in you

would not perish, but that they would have everlasting life. We thank you for that everlasting life. and I pray now that they would just repeat after me. God, I thank you for your love. I receive it. I thank you for your peace. I feel it. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for making him who had no sin.

All of my weakness, all of my fears, all of my insecurities, all of my shame. you placed in his body, nailed it to the cross, and put it to death. And when he was raised up, free and victorious, I was raised up too. No more limitations, no more fear. Free to make history. Because you erased every sin. every limitation, every anxiety. Thank you, Jesus.

Listen, I pray that you enjoyed this week's podcast. Do me a favor. Would you share it with someone, whether they are a man or a woman, if you have noticed someone who's been dealing with the fear of using their voice, maybe you can pass this along to them and it'll help the work that God is doing in their life.

I can't wait to talk to you next week. Bye. Eve off.