Jesus, Women, and Worth

What if the parts of your story you’re most ashamed of are actually the places where Jesus wants to meet you?

In this week’s powerful episode of Hey Tabi, I sat down with best-selling author and gospel-centered counselor Elyse Fitzpatrick, whose newest book Unloved: The Rejected Saints God Calls Beloved is a lifeline for women who’ve been hurt, dismissed, or shamed, especially by the Church.

Elyse shares her own spiritual journey, from being radically saved during the 70s Jesus movement to earning her Master’s in Biblical Counseling, only to later discover that she’d been missing the most crucial piece of the Christian life: the centrality of Christ’s finished work, not our performance. She began focusing on the Gospel.

“We don’t earn blessing from God,” Elyse said. “God, in His grace, blesses us because of the work that Jesus Christ has done.”

This statement is more than a theological nuance, it’s the antidote to the merit-based Christianity so many Christians have been fed. For women it often looks like this message: If you just submit more, suffer silently, serve harder—then life will finally get better.

But that’s not the Gospel. That’s bondage.

When the Church Gets It Wrong About Women

One of the most compelling parts of our conversation was how Elyse calls out the male-dominated retelling of women’s stories in Scripture. Her book focuses on many in Scripture, but in this episode we talked about Gomer, the woman God told Hosea to marry. Too often, she’s been “slut-shamed” or reduced to a symbol of unfaithfulness.

But what if we’ve been reading her all wrong?

Elyse reframes Gomer not as a cautionary tale, but as a deeply wounded woman seeking love in all the wrong places, maybe because she never believed she was worthy of it. Sound familiar?

“No little girl grows up dreaming she’ll be a prostitute,” Elyse said. “You get there because you believe that’s all you’re worth.”

Unloved is a book for every woman who’s ever been told she’s too much, too broken, or too far gone. It’s also a direct challenge to church cultures that have twisted Scripture into tools of control, shame, and silence.

From Legalism to Liberation

We also talked about spiritual abuse, trauma, and how toxic teachings can warp our view of God. Many of us live out a functional theology, saying we believe in grace while secretly hustling for worth.

Elyse names this distortion for what it is: legalism.

And she doesn’t hold back on critiquing the systems that uphold it.

“The people who make the rules and tell the history are usually the ones in power,” she said. “And they often aren’t trauma-informed.”

But Elyse’s story isn’t about bitterness, it’s really about transformation. She publicly repented for some of her earlier writings that perpetuated those harmful messages and now uses her platform to lift up marginalized voices and remind women that Jesus isn’t waiting for you to clean up your life. He’s already calling you beloved.

Real Healing Happens in Safe, Sacred Community

We wrapped up our conversation talking about what real Christian community looks like. It’s not the spiritually abusive “covenant membership” kind, but the kind that gets into the dirt with you, just like Jesus did (and just like Jesus does).

Healing doesn’t happen in isolation. But for survivors of abuse or harmful theology, finding safe, grace-filled spaces can feel impossible.

That’s why Elyse’s message matters so much. It reminds us:
✨ We’re not crazy.
✨ We’re not alone.
✨ And we are deeply, unchangeably beloved.

Find Elyse & grab Unloved and her other books here - https://elysefitzpatrick.com/

If this episode stirred something in you…

…and you’re ready to process your story with someone who gets it, our trauma-specialized team at The Journey and The Process offers specialized counseling for women in NC and TX, and coaching globally.