Who We Become

I met Elizabeth Packard this summer.

Well, technically, Elizabeth died in 1897, so perhaps I should say I met her through the pages of The Woman They Couldn't Silence by Kate Moore.

And apparently, Elizabeth has decided to stay with me.

Elizabeth was a wife and mother living in Illinois in the 1800s. She was intelligent, deeply religious, opinionated and increasingly willing to question some of the beliefs held by her husband, a minister.

Having her own opinions and convictions would come at an unimaginable cost.

At the time, Illinois law allowed a husband to have his wife committed to an insane asylum without the legal protections we take for granted today. Elizabeth's husband used that law to have her committed. In doing so, he removed her from her home, her children, her church and the life she knew.

Her crime, essentially, was having a mind of her own.

There is so much about her story that makes me angry. The ease with which power could be used against a woman. The assumption that strong emotions or independent thoughts were evidence of instability. Even the normal seasons of a woman's life - coming of age, pregnancy, motherhood, menopause, and the hormonal changes that accompany each of those seasons - could be pointed to as proof that she was somehow unreliable or unwell.

But anger isn't what stayed with me most after I finished the book.

Elizabeth did.

I admire what she accomplished. After enduring years of confinement, separation from her children and tremendous personal loss, she fought to reclaim her own life and then turned that fight outward, working to secure rights for others. She advocated for changes in laws governing married women and people confined to asylums. She used what happened to her to make the road better for those coming behind her.

And her work produced real change. Elizabeth traveled and lobbied legislatures across the country, helping win reforms to commitment laws in four states and protections for people living inside asylums. In Iowa, a law bearing her name protected patients' mail from being intercepted. In Illinois, she helped secure greater legal protections for married women. She is credited with influencing 34 bills in state legislatures.

Thirty-four!

The woman who had once been legally silenced spent years making certain other people would have a voice.

Most of us will never find ourselves fighting the battles Elizabeth fought. The laws have changed, and the circumstances of her life may feel far removed from our own. But being hurt, dismissed, misunderstood or treated unfairly isn't confined to a history book. Neither is the choice of what we allow those experiences to make of us.

And that is where Elizabeth's story really began to settle into mine.

Because as much as I admire what she accomplished, I think I admire how she accomplished it even more.

Elizabeth was fierce, but she could also be remarkably kind. She stood firmly by what she believed without allowing her circumstances to harden her. She repeatedly allowed people opportunities to do better. She carried an enormous burden without constantly pointing to herself and saying, "Look what I have endured. Look what I am doing."

Perhaps that is the part that has followed me around.

I know how easy it can be to lose a little of ourselves when we've been hurt.

There have been times in my own life when hurtful words, feeling overlooked, pushed aside or made to feel as though my wants or needs didn't matter caused me to retreat. I didn't want revenge. I didn't want vindication. I didn't even want to hold a grudge.

I just wanted to pull away.

And sometimes stepping away for a bit was exactly what I needed. A little time and distance gave me room to sort through what I was feeling.

But there have also been times when pulling away meant becoming a little less like myself. I love people. I love connection and community. And before long, I found myself reaching for my people again.

Fortunately, God has always been patient with me. He loves me. He restores me. And He gently helps me find my way back to myself.

Maybe that's why Elizabeth astonishes me.

I don't know what happened in the moments history didn't record. Maybe she cried. Maybe she raged. Maybe there were days when she wanted nothing more than to disappear from the fight. I hope we leave room for Elizabeth to have been human.

But we do know how she chose to move forward.

She kept going.

She kept advocating.

She kept believing that things could be better.

And, remarkably, she kept extending grace.

The people who hurt Elizabeth had power, and they used it to diminish another human being.

Elizabeth eventually gained a measure of power herself - through her voice, her freedom and her ability to influence change.

And she used that power to lift others.

Which brings me to the question I keep returning to:

What does it look like to stand fiercely against something that is wrong without allowing that wrong to change the best parts of who we are?

Grace isn't passivity. Elizabeth certainly didn't quietly accept injustice. She challenged it. She exposed it. She worked to change it.

Through both her actions and her attitude, she showed me that strength and grace can exist side by side.

I admire what Elizabeth Packard accomplished.

I admire how she accomplished it.

But perhaps most of all, I admire the woman she appears to have remained while doing it.

We can't always control what happens around us or the choices other people make. But we do have a say in what happens within us.

We can refuse to let what happens to us determine who we become.