Becoming Herself Again Before God

Jaci Scott
Mar 10
6 min read

Discernment, healing, and the freedom to hear God clearly

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, and while I do not personally identify with or embrace the full feminist movement, I am not blind to the reality of female suppression or the quiet ways women can be diminished. I can appreciate the sentiment behind International Women’s Day without subscribing to every ideology attached to it. I have lived enough, seen enough, and healed enough to know that a woman’s voice, dignity, and individuality can be steadily pressed down. Sometimes that suppression is loud and obvious. Other times it is subtle, relational, and hidden behind language that sounds virtuous, holy even: suppression/diminishment as “a sacrifice” of sorts to maintain peace with others, to not make waves in a group, or to “protect the body of Christ” many times at the expense of the individual. Any way it’s framed, it leaves marks. And that is part of why this reflection feels especially fitting in Lent.

Sometimes a woman does not lose her voice all at once; she loses it small surrender by small surrender.

Sometimes you wake up and realize you have been living from borrowed opinions. You no longer know what you think unless it has first passed through someone else’s approval. You second-guess your preferences, your instincts, even the small ordinary things: the food you like, the way you dress, the way you worship, the way you wear your hair, the things that bring you rest, the ideas that stir your heart. And when this has gone on long enough, learning to hear God again often begins with learning to hear yourself honestly again. And then you have to learn to trust both voices.

That, for me, has been part of the work of healing. And in many ways, it has also been part of the work of Lent.

Lent is a season of stripping away noise. A season of returning. A season of letting God uncover what has been buried beneath fear, performance, survival, and false masters. It is not only about giving something up. It is about making room. It is about becoming quiet enough, honest enough, and free enough to recognize the voice of God beneath every other voice that has tried to name us, manage us, shame us, or control us.

The prophet Elijah encountered the Lord not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in “a light silent sound” (1 Kgs 19:12, NABRE). Samuel learned to answer, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Sm 3:10, NABRE). And Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (Jn 10:27, NABRE).

Sometimes hearing God again begins there: not with spectacle, but with the whisper. We have to be still enough to hear it, though.

For a long time, I thought holiness might look like becoming smaller. Easier to manage. Easier to approve of. I thought goodness might mean having less personality, fewer questions, less clarity, less difference. But that is not the Gospel. Christ does not erase the person; He restores the person. He does not save us by hollowing us out. He saves us by making us whole.

St. Paul writes, “For freedom Christ set us free” (Gal 5:1, NABRE). He also writes, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God” (Rom 12:2, NABRE).

That verse has come to mean something deeper to me over time. It’s a verse I can lean into again with a different connotation. Christian maturity is not mindless compliance. It is renewed discernment. It is learning to ask, sometimes for the first time: Why do I believe this? Why do I do this? Is this truly rooted in Christ, or was it handed to me by fear, pressure, habit, or someone else’s need for control?

That kind of questioning is not rebellion against God. Sometimes it is the first honest step back toward Him.

God is not threatened by sincere discernment. He is truth. He does not need coercion to keep us close. The Lord who made us knows how He made us. Psalm 139 says, “You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made” (Ps 139:13–14, NABRE). The God who formed the inmost self is not asking us to become generic. He is calling us into holiness as real , individual persons.

This is one reason the stories of women in Scripture matter so much to me.

Deborah was a prophet and judge in Israel, a woman of wisdom and courage who led with discernment; Esther fasted, prayed, and then walked into danger for the sake of her people; Judith lived a life of prayer and fasting and acted with bold fidelity when her people were in danger; Mary did not become holy by having no voice. Instead, she became the model disciple by offering her full and conscious yes: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38, NABRE).

These women were not holy because they were indistinguishable. They were holy because, in surrender to God, they became fully themselves.

That matters.

It matters because there are ways of speaking about faith that sound pious while slowly teaching people to distrust their own God-given conscience, perception, and personhood. There are environments where “submission” gets confused with silence, where “unity” gets confused with sameness, where being “good” means never challenging what is said, never asking hard questions, never noticing or pointing out what feels disordered or false. But the Lord does not ask us to shut down the mind He gave us or to ignore our feelings - our God-given intuition and discernment. He asks us to have it renewed. He does not ask us to bury the heart He gave us. He asks us to let it rest in Him.

St. Augustine’s words come to mind: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” There is such tenderness in that truth. The Christian life is not a departure from the deepest self, but its purification and restoration in God. Lent is not about becoming less alive. It is about becoming rightly ordered, so that every disordered attachment, every false voice, every fear-driven pattern begins to lose its grip, and the voice of God becomes recognizable again.

Holiness has texture. Holiness has personality. Holiness sounds different in different lives because God is not in the business of mass-producing souls. He calls each one by name.

So yes, I am different now than I once was.

I hope I am.

We are supposed to grow. We are supposed to mature. We are supposed to be sanctified. We are supposed to become more deeply rooted in Christ, more stable in truth, more honest in love. But sanctification is not the destruction of individuality. Grace does not make us less human; it makes us more fully alive. The voice of God does not flatten a woman into a shadow. It calls her by name, as Jesus called Mary outside the tomb: “Mary!” (Jn 20:16, NABRE). And in being called by Him, she finally knows who she is.

Maybe that is part of what Lent is for.

To notice which voices have been shaping us.

To lay down the ones that produce fear, confusion, and self-erasure.

To bring every inherited thought into the light and ask with humility: Why do I think this? Why do I believe this? Is this from the Lord? Does this sound like the Good Shepherd?

And then, slowly, bravely, to let God teach us how to hear Him again.

Maybe hearing God again starts with small things. With admitting what you really enjoy. With noticing what brings peace instead of panic. With praying without performance. With worshiping from conviction instead of fear. With allowing yourself to become a person again in the presence of Christ.

Not a managed version of yourself.

Not a silenced version.

Not a borrowed version.