I’m A Liberated Woman!

I’m A Liberated Woman!

Three frustrating years and three colleges later, I decided that there weren’t any answers to my questions.

Life to me was just a collage of experiences – the more unusual, the better. Since junior high school I’d been tasting every possible experience in my quest for meaning, beginning with the smoking/drinking/partying routine. In high school and college I joined causes – everything from the environment and anti-war movements to civil rights.

Still unsatisfied, I thought maybe my problem was a spiritual hunger. I sampled Eastern philosophy, yoga, astrology and Zen. My friends and I traveled, read, discussed and took LSD. I went to psychotherapists and encounter groups and communes and every other subculture experience you can name, looking for the ultimate answers to life’s questions.

Eventually I became convinced that society’s only hope for change was through the schools, so I devoted myself to researching and teaching in “free schools.” I delved into psychology, not only to learn about children, but to figure myself out, too.

Finally I became actively involved in the feminist movement. I read everything I could get my hands on and organized women’s study groups, rallies, and consciousness-raising groups. I was extremely vocal about my convictions on women’s rights, including abortion. We were quite self-sufficient, I thought, and didn’t need men.

But with all my consciousness-raising and learning how to assert myself, I can honestly say that I never really became liberated. Three frustrating years and three colleges later, I decided that there weren’t any answers to my questions.

Ironically, around the time of my identity upheaval, a very close friend “became a Christian” and gave me a tape on the historical facts and importance of Christ’s resurrection. Initially I was skeptical and inattentive, blaming my problems on the way I’d been treated as a woman. However, the more I listened to the tape, the more I began to realize that my problem wasn’t social, emotional, psychological, environmental, political or sexual. It was spiritual. I was trying to live life without God.

I had never really understood who Jesus was – that He was God born as a man, born to die to pay the penalty for my sins as a free gift. But the more I listened to the tape, the more the facts forced me to agree that He was “the way and the truth and the life” (Jn. 14:6) and no one came to God except through Him.

For the first time in my life, I realized that I was a sinner who needed a Savior, so I told Jesus I was trusting in His payment for my sins and asked Him to take over my life. He began changing me right away.

As He satisfied my deepest needs, I found I could love others instead of being a slave to my own selfish desires. He gave me the answers to my questions about life’s meaning. And getting to know Him personally freed me to become all that consciousness-raising couldn’t make me.

As I studied the Bible, I discovered that God clearly considers men and women equally valuable. Experiencing His love and value for me has set me free from guilt, fear, anxiety and lack of meaning. Now peace, joy, love and freedom are a solid, daily reality. Finally, I’m in touch with who I am – in Jesus Christ.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Janet Maxim is a happily married, free-lance writer and mother of three daughters.