The Debee Hive

“In the Beginning” (In progress)
Attempt #2

“It was good. It was good. It was very good.”

From chaos to order . . .

“And God saw that it was *very* good.”

Founding Mother Phillis Wheatley was stolen from Africa at the age of 8, brought to the American colonies, bought by Boston merchant John Wheatley as a slave for his wife, Susanna, and named after the slave ship that transported her.

Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American author of a published book of poetry. In a 1772 poem, Phillis compared the American colonies relationship with England to a slave’s relationship with a slave holder:

. . . No more, America, in mournful strain
Of wrongs, and grievance unredress’d complain,
No longer shall thou dread the iron chain,
Which wanton Tyranny with lawless hand
Had made, and with it meant t’enslave the land.

Should you, my lord, while you peruse my song,
Wonder from whence my love of Freedom sprung,
Whence flow these wishes for the common good,
By feeling hearts alone best understood,
I, young in life, by seeming cruel fate
Was snatch’d from Afric’s fancy’d happy seat:
What pangs excruciating must mo**st,
What sorrows labour in my parent’s breast?
Steel’d was that soul and by no misery mov’d
That from a father seiz’d his babe belov’d:
Such, such my case. And can I then but pray
Others may never feel tyrannic sway?

On this , may we remember that true patriotism and love for country compels us to live into the vision our well-meaning but imperfect Founding Fathers had for this nation instead of believing that they were perfect arbiters of morality and nation-building.

Happy birthday, America!

This is all a new experiment for me, but if I could implore you to join one additional platform for the content I have planned for this site, it's my new Substack account!

Thank you for your support!

Subscribe to Jessica’s Substack My personal Substack. Click to read Jessica’s Substack, a Substack publication. Launched 4 days ago.

“In the beginning” . . . you were made for so much more, Sister.

Even some of the most devoted Christian women believe the Bible teaches that women are “less than” men.

Many have grown up in churches where they were explicitly or implicitly taught that the calling of every woman is to be a man’s “helpmeet”—mother to his children, assistant to his endeavors, manager of her midcentury-modern June Cleaver domain (as if a single-income, home-owning, stay-at-home-mom reality like that is even possible for most people anymore).

If you were taught that this is the only appropriate box for women, you probably also recall teachings related to the virtuous, wise, home-managing Proverbs 31 Woman who definitely had all her . . . stuff together.

You probably still feel the sting of words from the apostle Paul, including verses not just about what women should and shouldn’t be allowed to do (“I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.”) but also who women are (“For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”) and why that precludes them from those roles open to men.

(Spoiler alert: there’s a lot to discuss in those verses, and they aren’t as “clear” as you were led to believe.)

Maybe you grew up hearing those things, and at some point, you cast off all fealty to the church or a Christian identity. I don’t blame you. I would have been walking out the door with you if my heart hadn’t already been stubbornly convinced of other realities of the Christian story.

Maybe you still harbor a tiny flame of faith, but when you try to cultivate it, those voices from the past threaten to blow the light out entirely. Maybe you still believe there is truth in this idea of being a Christian, but you don’t know how to find it.

Maybe you love being a wife and a mother. Maybe you can’t imagine why other Christian women see drudgery where you see purpose. But maybe even you wonder what the Creator of the universe thinks of your sisters. Maybe you wonder what to tell your own daughters who may not have the same longings as you.
Maybe, in the deepest corners of your heart, you still have dreams of something beyond being a wife and a mother.

I don’t have every answer. But I have a lot more than I did when I was young.

And I know that in my life I have wanted nothing more than to let God be the author of my story. And God brought me to two Bible-believing, theologically conservative, evangelical colleges to learn all I could about the Bible and how Christians have lived it out over the last 2,000 years.

I know that at the age of 30, I’m single and essentially always have been. I know I’d love to fall in love but it’s never happened. I know I love kids but currently have zero desire to be a biological mother. I know that while my friends were dreaming of a future husband and children, I was dreaming of . . . something else.
Some other purpose. A vocation. A calling.

And yet, at the start of this fourth decade of my life, I still struggle to know what God wants me to do. I have two history degrees that feel more like a detriment than a benefit to finding a job that will allow me to save for retirement or even get an apartment of my own.

Over the last five years, God has had me in an incredibly long, lonely, exhausting chapter of my life. When I write the memoir someday, the chapter title will just be “Stuck.”

My life fell apart in my 20s. I have felt so powerless to change anything, and I have lost relationships with friends who grew frustrated with me and family members who assumed the worst: that I’m just lazy and just like to complain. I’m grateful that in the last year, I’ve finally been diagnosed with ADHD, autism, and an as-of-yet-unnamed chronic pain issue related to the muscles in my legs. I’m grateful because these three mental and physical disabilities tell me that there are mountains I’ve been climbing, even as it looks like I’m doing nothing. But even those revelations haven’t helped my situation in a tangible way. I’m still stuck.

But there’s one place where I’m not stuck anymore.

I’m not stuck anymore believing the lies I once did about women.

Between being a member of a Bible-believing church denomination that affirms women at every level of church and societal leadership, to personally knowing faithful women who exist in all of those church positions, to the life-changing work of biblical scholars like John Walton (who flipped my faith on its head and made it stronger when it righted itself), to studying the history of powerful female leaders in the Bible and history and enjoying the stories of similarly powerful women in fiction, God has given me the ability to cut myself from the tethers keeping me bound to the lies I was told as a child.

And now I know why God gave me a love of history and storytelling and a belief that we learn best through considering the lives of others.

It’s because I want women to see that God loves you so, so much, and that he has called you to so much more than you’ve probably been told.

Maybe you’ve already experienced that freedom; let’s celebrate together.

Maybe you’re not there yet; let’s walk that road together.

Maybe you never will be there; that’s fine. We can still do life together.

Even in the stuckness, I’m ready to reach out. I want community, and I want to be able to pursue an opportunity to use the knowledge and wisdom that my time at Northwestern and Wheaton have given me for the benefit of others, even if that opportunity isn’t a traditional 9-to-5 job.

I’d love it if this could eventually become a new career path. I’d love it if I could do work that feeds my soul and makes me feel I’m making a difference in people’s lives and helping them grow their faith and love of Jesus.

But right now, I’m just trying to step out in faith.

I’d love it if you stepped out with me.

Today I’m announcing the founding of a new community: The Debee Hive.

There’s a lot to say about the meaning of the name, though you may have already figured it out if the theme of strong, female leaders is enough of a clue.

This is a community and a brand that I hope to grow on a variety of platforms. Feel free to join wherever you’d like; the content I have planned will be shared and reposted in different places.

I believe this is work I will be doing in one form or another for the rest of my life.

I believe that it’s that important.

Sisters, wherever you find yourself on your faith journey, let me help you find joy in the love God has for you.

Not because of who you are in relation to your brothers in Christ or to anyone else.

But because of who you are, and who your Creator made you to be.

Soli deo gloria.

A community of Christian women (and those who affirm their God-given callings) celebrating the stories of women in the Bible, history, and fiction.