When Someone Makes Room for You
The Work of Staying | A Reflection on Women, Leadership, and the Responsibility to Make Room
Scripture Reflection: Philemon 1:8–21
There are women who have spent years proving that they belong.
They have done the work, carried the responsibility, learned the language of leadership, and made themselves useful in places that have not always known what to do with their gifts.
Some have been welcomed for what they could contribute, but not fully embraced for what they could become.
Others have remained in rooms where their competence was never seriously questioned, yet their authority was continually negotiated.
And somewhere along the way, they learned to mistake endurance for belonging.
In the small biblical letter to Philemon, Paul does something worth noticing. He uses his own standing to appeal for a man who does not possess the same power. He asks that Onesimus be received differently, that the person before Philemon not be confined to the identity or position previously assigned to him.
Paul does not simply offer encouragement from a distance. He places something of himself behind the appeal.
There is something profoundly instructive about that.
For all the conversations we have about women’s resilience, confidence, ambition, and courage, perhaps we have not spoken enough about the people and institutions responsible for making room.
The woman who is already carrying the work should not have to spend her entire life proving that she is worthy of the authority to do it.
The woman whose judgment is trusted in moments of crisis should not find that same judgment dismissed when decisions are being made.
And the woman who has remained faithful to an organization should not have to confuse its dependence on her with its commitment to her.
There is a difference between being needed and being valued.
There is a difference between being included and being empowered.
There is a difference between someone appreciating your contribution and someone being willing to challenge the circumstances that limit it.
Perhaps this is another dimension of the work of staying.
Not simply learning how to endure difficult places, but discerning whether those places are willing to change.
Not abandoning our calling because someone else has failed to recognize it.
Not surrendering our dignity in exchange for an opportunity to remain useful.
And remembering that sometimes the most meaningful thing one leader can do for another is not to offer advice about becoming stronger, but to use the authority they already possess to make the road less difficult.
Because the work of staying was never meant to belong only to the person struggling to remain.
Sometimes it belongs to those who have the power to make remaining possible.
Perhaps that is one of the quieter lessons in Paul’s appeal to Philemon. It is not enough to recognize someone’s worth privately while leaving unchanged the circumstances that diminish them.
Recognition must become action.
Encouragement must sometimes become advocacy.
And leadership must be willing to make room.
For the woman who has spent years carrying more than her title acknowledges, perhaps the invitation is not to prove herself once more.
Perhaps it is to ask whether the place that has benefited from her presence is prepared to honour the fullness of what she brings.
And for those who hold authority, perhaps the invitation is equally searching:
Are we merely grateful for the women who keep showing up, or are we prepared to change what they must endure in order to stay?
Because staying should not require someone to disappear into the needs of an institution.
Nor should belonging depend upon a lifetime of being useful.
Sometimes the most powerful act of leadership is making room for another person to become all that they were meant to be.
A Question to Sit With
How many women have been encouraged to keep showing up in places where those with power have never seriously considered what they themselves need to change?
And perhaps, just as importantly:
Where do we hold the power to make room for someone else?