I’m just finally starting to unbury from the mountain of e-mails… but I have to go back out tomorrow, this time to Tennessee, so there will be another mountain waiting for me when I get back. No rest for the weary, I can tell you.

Ann Melton has come out from under her post-Women’s Advocacy rock of late, so I’m starting to get some of her forwards about different articles she’s read again (yay!). The one she sent a few days ago highlighted that ever-prevalent problem of the portrayal of women in the media. Apparently, a couple of Gallup polls have said that between 79 and 81 percent of Americans would feel comfortable with a female president. Yet honestly, despite widely expressed fears about women taking over the world, we are still relatively marginal figures in American politics.

Small wonder, though, when you look at the kind of press coverage women get. As the article pointed out, why do we have to know from the Associated Press that Harriet Miers bakes a great sweet potato pie? Or have the front page of the New York Times tell us that Condoleezza Rice is between a 6 and 8 dress size? And don’t forget Larry King Live talking about Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “fat legs.” Can you tell me anything like that about John Roberts or Ted Kennedy or Karl Rove? Do any of these facts have anything to do with these women’s actual skills or abilities?

Yet in contrast, last night I saw one more image that gives me hope that we’re doing something right, somewhere. As many of you know, I work with the youth group at my church. I was in the chapel last night with a set of sisters, cleaning up from a group project. As the elder sister sat down at the piano, the younger (maybe 10 years old?) marched up to the podium and said, “I’ll be the preacher. Good evening, everyone!” Just that morning, a female minister had baptized the girls’ baby sister into the family of God.

You know what? That’s why we do what we do—so that the girls of today and tomorrow can dream of being a minister, dream of being a professor, dream of being president. Yeah, the media may belittle and objectify women in leadership, but every day women are embodying the truth in their own lives. And some little girl, somewhere in America, is taking notice.

“When she and her household were baptized, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home.’ And she prevailed upon us.” --Acts 16:15

Kelsey