Articles
Carole Scott, author, musician, and teacher experienced a
Holy Spirit encounter in 1966 that markedly transformed her life. The
inner vision given to her at that time has enabled her to minister in love to
women and to serve them with compassionate gifts of prophecy and prayer.
Her prophetic message, "Get Up Daughters, The Glory Of The Lord Is Upon You!"
was birthed in that vision and is empowered with an anointing prayer for women
of all ages.
Carole, a University of Kansas graduate, is a teacher by training and a gifted
charismatic communicator. For over 25 years she has coordinated a weekly
city-wide prayer group, given numerous workshops, and has served as a spiritual
friend to women in many countries. She is a graduate of the Catholic
Chrism Institute. With her husband, Bob, she directs the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal Services for the diocese of Tulsa.
The following article is from her talk given at the a retreat sponsored by the
Int'l Christian Women's History Project through the ministry of Sue and Eddie
Hyatt in November of 2002.
"Get Up Daughters, The Glory Of The Lord Is Upon You!"
When I was a young mother in 1965, as I was hanging clothes on the
clothesline, a great light came beside me and a hush covered everything as if
the world itself had stopped turning. Notice I was not in a church or on
my knees in a great cathedral. God permeates women’s lives right where
they are in their ordinary days. The kitchen sink can be a woman’s
cloister, or my case, the clothesline was my meeting place that day. From
deep within me, a place untouched by sin, a place I cannot access by my mind, a
place free of illusions, a place I can never will myself into, a place of
brilliant tenderness, I heard the voice of Jesus speak to me. Then, I was
taken up, though my feet were firmly rooted in the earth, I was taken up and I
saw across the city. I saw the glory of God burning in the women. I
saw the fire of God lit in them. Glory, glory, glory! Heaven and earth are
full of that glory and I saw it burning in the women.
I have seen you. You are like a bush burning in the desert. You are
a light set on a hill. This I know about each one of you, the whole spirit
world sees you. As they gaze at you the angels rejoice and the demons
shudder. For you are woman, designed from the very beginning to hold the
glory of God. As scripture says in 2 Cor.14:7, we men and women, earthen
vessels, hold a treasure, the glorious presence of God.
I come here with a deep belief that women and men serve no good purpose by
denying this glory. When women deny the eternal flame of glory within,
they become alienated from their very selves. When they deny the glory
within they become spiritually bent over. Like the stooped woman in
scripture the very bones of their bodies and spirits bend under the weight of an
ancient lying spirit. (Lk.13:10-13)
Yet, I know that no matter how stooped woman has become in the church, the voice
of Jesus is still calling her out. Telling her to stand tall.
Calling her a daughter. In scripture that stooped woman went to the
synagogue bowed like a question mark (?) not knowing who she was in God, not
knowing her inheritance in the family of God, and she came out like an
exclamation point (!). That is my hope for all of you in this conference
that you will walk out of this conference like an exclamation point, knowing the
glory that God has given to women as well as to men. I hope both men and
women will leave this place standing tall in truth, empowered to stand up and
call to others as Jesus did, “woman, you are set free.”
I believe we woman have an important message to share not just with each other
but with the entire church. So I am here at Susan Hyatt’s invitation to
share my testimony with you. I will simply tell of my time before I had
scriptural insight, what changed my scriptural view of women, and how I apply my
understanding of biblical womanhood now.
I was born in a little rock house in the middle of the Kansas prairie where
wheat fields move like great oceans of undulating green waves. I was
blessed to marry a geologist who took me out of those wheat fields and who
invited me across wild oceans, up the world’s tallest mountains, and into remote
places I had only dreamed of as a child.
Each time I returned to the States with perplexing memories of the women I had
seen in these countless countries. I saw women who had been sexually
mutilated, women who were poor, women who were abused, silenced. I saw
elegant women in government mansions. I visited with prominent women at
fine banquets and conversed with scholarly women at universities. But each
time I would return to the States troubled in my spirit. I was so troubled
in the Spirit that I began weeping for women. I wept because so few of the
women I had seen knew who they were in the family of God. They were
stooped.
Few knew that before they were ever conceived in their mother’s womb or that God
had cradled them, breathed on them and sent them here with a mission. They
did not know there was a mandate on their lives that no religious institution or
no culture was to thwart and which no man could fill.
My spirit was troubled by what I saw on these trips, but I didn’t know how to
incorporate these experiences into my life. The reason I couldn’t yet
incorporate or speak about these women was because I lacked an understanding of
God’s written plan for them. I was scripturally blind. I had no
scriptural roots for what I was seeing. I was blinded to biblical
womanhood; and worst yet, I didn’t know my own blindness.
How could that be? I was a life-long Christian, a cradle Catholic. I
was Spirit- filled. I prayed in tongues. I was covered with the
blood. I had studied the word and heard preaching every Sunday. But,
I was scripturally blind. To me, women in scripture were minor characters,
except for Mother Mary in the New Testament and a few major women in the Old
Testament. Women in the book of ACTS were invisible to me. I read
right over their names. I had selective vision when it came to reading the
Bible and I didn’t even know I was missing anything. For example, when I
read of Priscilla and Aquilla, I read right over Priscilla as if she just tagged
along with Aquilla. I was blind to biblical womanhood.
It was not until I was standing in the middle of the double dry desert in Abu
Dabi that my eyes began to be opened. It was 112 degrees in the shade and
I, like the wild camels, was seeking any slim shadow a desert plant would offer.
It was then that I saw her coming across the desert with her water jar in hand.
She was covered in a heavy burqa and walked with a slow pace across that hot
sand. It was a pace no doubt set by her mother and grandmothers before
her. She was coming to a well. As she approached the spigot she saw
me. She set down her water jar and turned to face me. We were two
women, alone in the desert. We stood facing each other with no words
between us, but with a knowing look that women sometimes have for each other.
It was an understanding without sound.
When I returned to the States, I couldn’t get that woman out of my mind; and
strangely, I could only see her in red. I was so sure that she was dressed
in red that I asked my husband if there was a chance that her garment was red.
“No, not there” he said. As I puzzled about the woman in red, I remembered
that the early prophets often wore red. What was the Spirit trying to say
to me? I whispered, “What is it you want to say to me, Lord? How am
I deaf and blind to you, Holy Spirit? Speak Lord, I’m listening.” I took
up a Bible and began reading the story about the woman at the well (John 4 ).
The line “She set down her water jar,” jumped out at me. So that day, I
set down my water jar, that is, I set down my old way of gathering holy water,
and I began to listen with new ears to the scriptures. I let the Spirit
lead me. As I did so, my blindness began to be washed away in that deep
well of scripture.
As I read, I saw that Jesus believed in the total equality of men and women.
I saw that Jesus’ ministry was supported by women, spread by women, announced by
women and shared by women; and I painfully realized that for 2,000 years church
thinking has been almost exclusively male. Little or nothing of women’s
spiritual journey into the scriptures has been preached on Sundays. Little
or nothing of women’s insight has been incorporated into church documents.
I knew the entire church was stooped because of that omission.
Every day the Holy Spirit and I read scripture together. I heard the
Spirit urge within me, “I want to lift shame off women.” “What shame, Lord?” I
asked. Immediately a childhood memory returned. It was a memory of
myself as a 7- year-old, little girl sitting in a church class. We called
it catechism class. The teacher was telling us about original sin and the
garden story. When the teacher concluded the story, one of the boys said,
“Why did Eve do that? Boy, oh boy, Eve ruined everything for everybody.”
In that moment, I looked at the boys; and I knew I was different, less somehow,
and of the gender who brought evil to everyone. That ancient lying spirit
came quickly to every little girl in that class, and the silent shame shrouded
us and began to stoop us. The shame-filled translation lie of the garden
had just been passed on to another generation of children. As I recalled
that childhood memory, I understood this was the shame the Holy Spirit wanted to
lift off women. Lift the ancient lie. Lift the shame.
Quickly I grabbed the Bible and turned to Genesis. But now I read the
story with new eyes. I read Gen. 1: 26-27, “Male and female God created
them. In God’s image they were created.” God is male and female; and woman
in all her bloody roundness is an image of God! Scripture says it is so.
I understood immediately that the Holy Spirit is grieved when we infer that Eve
was created inferior. I understood that we grieve the Holy Spirit when we
pass on the lie that woman’s subordination to man occurred at creation.
Scripture does not say that. Bad translations do.
God’s original plan was not that woman would be suppressed, oppressed,
depressed, denied opportunities, beaten by their husbands, mistreated, raped,
mutilated, veiled, stereotyped, bullied, shamed, enshrouded, hidden, silenced,
and enslaved. God’s original destiny for woman, a destiny that was
restored by Jesus, is that woman would rule on earth with Adam. As I read,
I realized that God gave them both dominion and told both to go bear fruit.
He gave women as well as men the apostolic commission to go. That was
before sin rent the genders apart and before marriage was a cultural
institution. Humanity was originally designed for equal partnership and
the apostolic mandate was given by God to both women and men.
This is God’s basic plan. This is the plan satan wants to thwart.
Satan knows women are pivotal to God’s plan. To save himself, satan has
sought to destroy women. To prolong his time here he has in every culture,
in every generation, warred against women and they have grievously suffered.
Lying stories about women have been told through the centuries by the Father of
Lies, and many have believed his tales. Scriptures have been twisted and
poorly translated to suit those erroneous beliefs
So now I speak in homes, prayer groups, discussion groups, wherever the door
opens. My message is, Jesus, Friend of Women. When I speak to
women’s groups, I say clearly, “Men are not the enemy.” Men are designed by God
to be equal companions with us in the kingdom. Women and men were designed
by the Creator for joint ministry, for egalitarian ministry, together, for
partnership ministry. I tell the Roman Catholics and I tell other
denominations that I believe God is restoring the egalitarian ministry,
restoring it as was the original design.
I believe as truth is being spoken, women are being set free from a deep anger
that has come through generations of victimization. They are being set
free from deep anger, but at the same time not going into ungodly submission.
I believe men’s eyes are being opened to truth which is setting them free.
I believe this is a very important time in which God is breaking restrictions
that have bound women and blinded men. This time of restoration is so
important because Acts 3:21 says, “Christ is being held in the heaven until the
times of universal restoration of which God spoke.” What we are doing here today
is part of that universal restoration.
A most pressing prayer Jesus prayed in his agony was for unity. The
restoration of partnership ministry is part of Jesus’ pressing prayer for unity.
We must make that unity our high priority. We have not yet opened the gift
of unity in the church.
God is saying to the church, “Get up My Daughters and My Sons. My Glory Is
Upon You. I am lifting restrictions. I am restoring the Garden’s
partnership ministry. I am breaking ungodly submission. I am
stopping gendered ministry. I am restoring the original design.
After that Holy Spirit lesson on Genesis, the scriptures were on fire. I
saw women in the holy Bible whom I had never seen. I began to understand
the great role women had in salvation history.
A few examples: I saw that women were the key players in the Hebrew nation’s
salvation. Without women we would never be singing “Go Down Moses, Way
Down in Egypt Land.”
Two midwives broke the law at great risk to their own lives, plunged their arms
into the birth waters, and made sure Moses lived. We need women today who
are not afraid to plunge into the birth waters of what God is birthing in the
church today.
I read of the great prophetic Miriam, the first woman I know in scripture who
led women to freedom, by leading them in the dance of freedom as they left
Egypt. The poet, Mary Lou Sleevi, writes, “Oh that women today would point
their toes in God’s direction and, like Miriam, turn this earth into God’s dance
floor.” A victory dance is coming. We need Miriams of this generation to
stand up and lead the dance to victory.
I stumbled onto Junia, the apostle who suffered imprisonment and who was honored
as an apostle until the 12th century when attempts were made to erase her from
history. And, there was deacon Phoebe. You have no idea how this
rattled the brain of a Roman Catholic who has known nothing but male hierarchy.
I hope you will give the Holy Spirit permission to rattle your brain a bit.
We need men and women today who have the courage necessary to allow the Holy
Spirit to shake, rattle and roll their brains and move them beyond theological
and denominational boundaries.
I read Anna with new eyes. Anna, the old one, was the first person to
evangelize the Jews. When Jesus was just 8 days old, she told them the
newborn Jesus was the Messiah. She was such a prophet of God that she
recognized Jesus among dozens of children in the temple that day and she spoke
to every seeker who came into the temple. Anna’s story has so much to say
to us today, especially to older women, who are the most silenced and forgotten
people in our culture and in our churches.
There is a stigma in our culture that comes to women in old age. Why do
you think we women put harsh chemicals on our faces and even undergo a surgeon’s
knife? We know that wrinkles can silence women’s wise prophetic voices and
hush their gifts. Today, God is restoring the ministries of wrinkled
women. God is calling out Annas, His elder daughters. Restrictions
are being taken off older women. They are being released for ministries.
Wherever I am, I call out to elderly women and say, “Elder daughter of God, do
not say I am too old. Arise, stand up, the glory of the Lord is upon you,
and like Anna, you cannot be silent.
Remember too that it was a woman who initiated Jesus’ first public miracle at
Cana. At Cana, Mary revealed what God wanted to do because she knew the
timing of God. I understood that we women of today are to be aware of
God’s time and courageously initiate the miracles in this generation even when
society does not agree and the church murmurs against us. There is wine to
be poured out for this generation; and we women, like Mary, must stand up and
call for it.
As I read and studied the scriptures, the Holy Spirit would nudge me to check
the pictures that were in my head. Though I was on a pathway of truth, I
had faulty pictures in my head.
For example, how many women witnessed the crucifixion? The picture in my
head was Mary, Mary Magdalene, and a couple other women as seen in some famous
Italian painting. I had allowed someone else to paint a false picture in
my head. The gospel of John says many women were there witnessing the
crucifixion. Every time I read of the crucifixion, I had to take down the
faulty picture in the gallery of my mind and consciously see John’s many brave
women standing on the hill witnessing. Sometimes that is all we can do is
witness and remember so we can tell the truth.
And when I read of the two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, why did my
mind usually make pictures of two men walking on the road? Who put that
picture in my head? Traditionally, it was thought they were husband and
wife-- partnership ministry.
Why did I see only men at the last supper? Knowing now the egalitarian
nature of Jesus’ ministry, why did that faulty picture hang in my head? I
had allowed a famous last-supper painting to nullify the truth of scripture.
He said to his disciples, “Take and eat, this is my body, do this in memory of
me.” Why do I have pictures of only male disciples receiving that request?
Disciples were men and women.
Do you have some pictures in the gallery of your mind that you need to take
down? Do it today!
As the pictures in my mind changed, the Spirit began to correct my habits of
speech. Linguists, people who study language, tell us that a word is
not a word unless it puts a picture in your head. The Holy Spirit
wanted my words to paint accurate pictures for others.
I no longer use the term “men” when I mean men and women because I know that
word “men” will put faulty pictures in the hearers’ heads.
When I mean male, I say men. When I mean female, I say women.
When I mean male and female together, I say humanity.
When I say disciples, I make certain listeners know disciples were women and
men.
I encourage you to watch your language, be careful of the pictures you are
painting in the minds of others because God wants us to put on a new mind, and
that mind of Christ will bear no false pictures. Speak truthfully.
Use accurate words.
Children in our churches hear mostly male examples and male images. I
balance this with truth.
I hang pictures in the gallery of my grandchildren’s minds by simply teaching
scriptural truth. When I make bread and my grandchildren are there, I
speak scriptural truth. I say, “God is like a woman making bread.” When a
child is scared and needing to hide in the arms of God, I embrace that child;
and I say, “ God is like a mother hen.” When we have lost something and the
family is searching and finally finds the object, I say, “God is like a woman
looking for a lost coin.” When I am mixing yeast into the flour, I say, “God’s
kingdom is like a woman putting leaven in three pecks of meal until all is
leavened. You see, I am hanging new pictures for this generation of
children.
I am assuming there will be some sorting and rearranging in all our minds.
Some old pictures may be tossed out and new ones hung. It may be painful
to let go of cherished paintings, but if we search here together for truth we
will all be set free. Did Jesus not say, “I have more to tell you but you
could not bear it now.”(John 16:12) Didn’t Jesus also say, “I will send the
Spirit of Truth who will guide you to all truth.” Jesus is here wanting to tell
the church what it couldn’t bear to hear in earlier years and the Holy Spirit of
Truth is hovering to set BOTH men and women free today.
“I have much more to tell the church,” the Lord says. “Listen. My
truth will set you free.”
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Today I believe the egalitarianism that Jesus taught and lived is being
restored. The unity for which He prayed is being revealed, and the
apostolic commission given to women and men in the garden is coming into
clarity. Praise God for Susan and Eddie Hyatt whose ministry equips us for
this time of restoration. Praise God and Stand Up Daughters! The Glory of
the Lord is Upon You! God's truth will set you free!
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