Summer Sampler: As Many as the Stars
Welcome to the Summer Sampler Series! This summer, we are celebrating the beautiful, diverse ways God is working in and through the women in our community. Psalm 107:2 declares, “Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story.” Every week, our Summer Sampler series will feature a different author sharing a personal glimpse into the story God has been writing in her life and ministry lately. These are authentic, honest reflections of faith, encouragement, and everyday ministry experienced “along the way” of regular life. So, grab a cool drink, pull up a chair, and join us this summer as we celebrate His presence in our everyday lives!
By Kim Findlay
There is something beautiful about a group of women who say yes to God, isn’t there? We witnessed this through our summer series on Stories. Each story carried a unique perspective of our glorious God.
We read those stories that unfolded along different roads, carrying unique and sometimes complicated experiences. We read about women asking different questions, healing from different wounds, and experiencing joy. Each encounter revealed God in different ways, through different seasons and circumstances.
This is the beauty of God’s Kingdom.
Our vision at By Design has never been about creating one particular kind of woman, ministry leader, or theological expression but serving the broader Kingdom of God. We want to make room for women to faithfully follow Jesus within their own contexts, while recognizing the image of God in one another.
We do this not by offering permission or choosing what is “right.” Permission suggests that someone else holds the authority to decide whether we are allowed to step into what God has already placed within us. Instead, we tend to the story of Scripture as we’re invited to press deeper and see ourselves—and each other—as women made in the Imago Dei, the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Before we are ministry leaders, pastors, teachers, advocates, mothers, daughters, theologians, or disciples, we are image-bearers, created to reflect God’s character to the world (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Scripture reveals that Jesus was never afraid of a woman’s complicated story. He saw her, met her, and called her forward.
He saw the woman at the well (John 4:1-42).
She arrived carrying a history that could have become the defining feature of how others saw her. But Jesus did not condemn her. He engaged her. He revealed the truth of her life, and then he revealed himself. She left that encounter transformed—and became a witness to her community.
He saw the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years (Mark 5:25-34).
She had lived with suffering, shame, and isolation. Yet when she reached for Jesus, he did not recoil. Though others saw her as unclean and untouchable, he stopped, noticed, and called her daughter. He restored not only her body but her dignity and brought her back into community.
He saw Mary (John 12:1-8).
The woman who poured out extravagant devotion at Jesus’ feet, wiping them with her hair. Her worship may have made others uncomfortable, but Jesus received it and understood what others dismissed. He honored her devotion.
He saw Rahab (Joshua 2 and 6).
Her past could have disqualified her in the eyes of others. Instead, God wove her into a story of redemption that reached far beyond what she could have imagined.
He saw Hagar (Genesis 16).
A woman who had been used, displaced, and seemingly forgotten. Yet, she encountered God in the wilderness, naming him El Roi—the God who sees.
Again and again, Scripture reveals a God who sees women not as categories or positions, nor as representatives of a particular denomination or theological tradition or problems to solve or people to fit into someone else’s mold.
He sees women made in his image: whole women with stories and agency, women with questions, gifts, wounds, courage, faith, doubt, hope, and calling.
Perhaps, since we are made in his image and he sees us, part of our calling is to see one another as he does.
It may feel easier to celebrate women whose stories look like ours, to understand the calling of someone who shares our background, our theology, our ministry context, or our experience of God. But Kingdom unity does not require identical stories. In fact, perhaps the Kingdom is more beautiful because of the variety and complexity of it all.
Kingdom unity does not require identical stories
One woman encountered God in a quiet sanctuary; another met him in the wilderness.
One may have found her calling early; another may have spent decades wondering whether she had one at all.
One may have been nurtured by the Church; another may carry wounds caused by it.
One may lead from a pulpit, another from a kitchen table. One may shepherd thousands, another may faithfully pour into five.
Different stories, different perspectives, and different experiences … yet the same God.
What if, instead of asking, “Does her story look like mine?” we began asking, “What might her story show me about God?”
Women leading in ministry do not need to become more alike: We need spaces where our differences are held as gifts rather than threats. We need to listen to stories that challenge our assumptions, making room for experiences that are different from our own. We need to resist the temptation to decide whose story is most legitimate, whose calling is most important, or whose way of following Jesus is most faithful simply because it looks familiar to us.
There are women leading in places we may never enter, carrying burdens we may never understand, and hearing God in ways that may stretch us. We recognize that their stories matter; so do yours and mine.
There are as many stories as there are stars in the sky, each one as unique as each grain of sand. No two are exactly the same, so let’s celebrate them.
Let’s celebrate the woman whose journey looks nothing like ours, the leader who is just beginning and the one who has been faithful for decades.
Let’s celebrate the stories of courage and the stories of restoration, the ones of certainty and those filled with questions. The stories of open doors and those in the wilderness seasons.
Let’s celebrate every woman who bears the image of God—and every way his grace has met her there.
Because when we gather our stories together, something extraordinary happens: We begin to see a God who is infinitely bigger than any one of us could have imagined.
A God who sees.
A God who restores.
A God who calls.
A God who reveals himself again and again through the beautiful, complicated, courageous lives of his daughters.
And perhaps the greatest gift we can offer one another is not a single story we all must follow but the freedom to faithfully live the story God is writing in each of us.
There is room for your story and hers.
There is room for all of us.
And in the end, every story points beyond itself—to the One who wrote us, sees us, calls us, and does infinitely more than we could ever ask or imagine.
To him be all the glory and honor and praise, forever and ever. Amen
Kim Findlay is the Executive Director of By Design Ministries. She is a speaker, author, and ministry leader with experience in strategic development, children’s ministry, discipleship, care, and prayer ministries. She’s a Midwesterner living in New England with her husband, Russ; they have raised seven children and now enjoy the titles of Nana and Papa to their grandchildren. She is a board member for South Shore Community Church and the New England District of the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination, and she loves to encourage others toward faith and hope.
Kim is also one of our featured speakers in the By Design Speakers Directory. If you are looking for a Christian speaker for your special event, please visit our online directory or contact us to request a hard copy.