1886

“Dr. Martha Ripley opens a maternity hospital for unwed mothers in Minneapolis. A pioneer in combining social care with medical treatment, she teaches new mothers how to care for their babies and helps them find work. 

Martha Ripley’s training was in medicine, but her interest was in the rights of women. She advocated for women’s right to vote and consistently argued against the abuses that led women to her hospital.” *

Thank you, Lord, that your personality is balanced; You are protector and nurturer! Will You bless Martha Ripley and her generations in the imitation of Your character? She expressed the mother nurture for those women and girls who did not have an adequate voice in society, or means for their pregnancy. 

Our society has often skewed into imbalance in its’ emphasis of one gender over the other. We have denied the good attributes and blessings of the opposite sex that You have intended for our state. We have failed to balance our head and our heart! We have failed to balance rational thought with the relational thoughts based on love. Lord have mercy! 

How has this been expressed? In the over emphasis of male political leadership and exclusive male voting rights for much of our history. We have suppressed the benefits of female scholarship, and the Imago Dei that is intellectually expressed best by a female mind. Our churches have too often promoted female submission to male head of households, without equally emphasizing male responsibility to selfless love and leadership. We have negated Your example of humble servant-leadership. Hear our prayer!

Lord, will You forgive us for discounting your voice in the opposite sex? Will You forgive the negation of female doctors, scientists, and cultural leaders like Dr. Ripley? Lord, will forgive us for emphasis on submission rather than freedom? Will You teach us the healthy bounds of submission to one another in choice-based love?

Will You stop us from overreacting and rejecting the opposite sex based on our painful experiences? Will You help Minnesotans’ forgive our mothers or fathers, and deliver us from the cycle of offense, counter-offense? Will You give us the forbearance for our ‘beloved enemies’ of the opposite sex? All our rejections of the opposite sex deny Your masterpiece in each. Will You forgive us?

• http://www.mnhs.org/about/dipity_timeline.htm
• **Find out more about “the duty of not keeping silent”? http://historyapolis.com/blog/2014/04/04/the-duty-of-not-keeping-silent-martha-ripley-and-minneapolis-maternity-hospital/