A few weeks ago, I visited Elizabeth Poe, a woman who owns a yarn shop in Franklin, Tennessee, a small city right outside of Nashville. From what I’ve heard, there’s a lot to see in the town of Franklin – Civil War sites, museums, and an array of majestic antebellum homes. But I saw nothing of those. I made a beeline for a little obscure shop by the name of The Joy of Knitting. And I don’t even knit or crochet.
I wanted to meet the lady who one blogger was referring to when she titled her piece “This is What a Powerful Woman Looks Like.” When I walked in the simple shop and met Elizabeth, what I soon discovered was that she was a “regular woman” – straightforward in her speech, compassionate, kind, funny, and faithful to her beliefs.
Many women in my life exhibit these qualities in varying degrees – just everyday women who love God. And that’s what Poe is, just an everyday woman who loves God. And she loves and respects her customers – people she considers her friends. After spending just an hour or two with Poe myself, I felt like we were friends.
A couple days after the infamous Women’s March on Washington in late January, a woman walked in requesting yarn to make a cat hat. She was referring to the pink hat that many who attended the march sported, among others dressed in explicit costumes. The hat is intended to represent female genitalia and is typically described by the use of an expletive.
Poe responded by telling the woman she wouldn’t sell her the yarn she was requesting if she had it on hand. As a business owner, she had learned to be proactive in addressing her policies publicly. So, within moments of the woman leaving the shop, she jumped on Facebook and stated her case.
Her post read:
With the recent women's march on Washington, I ask that if you want yarn for any project for the women's movement that you please shop for yarn elsewhere. The vulgarity, vile, and evilness of this movement is absolutely despicable. That kind of behavior is unacceptable and is not welcomed at The Joy of Knitting. I will never need that kind of business to remain open. Two wrongs will never ever make it right.
As the owner of this business and a Christian, I have a duty to my customers and my community to promote values of mutual respect, love, compassion, understanding, and integrity. The women's movement is counterproductive to unity of family, friends, community, and nation.
I do pray for these women. May God work out His love in their hearts and continue to heal and unite Americans.
Poe is simply a woman who happens to own a business, who lives by her convictions. She’s not a "radical" Christian. She is a Christian.
After Poe’s Facebook post, she was bombarded with vulgar, hateful comments and phone calls from thousands of angry people. Out of respect for her customers, she deleted over 25,000 Facebook comments, but she called back many of the callers who left messages. She kindly expressed her concerns while also sharing God’s love and forgiveness with them.
Two callers even threatened rape. Those two, she says, she didn’t call back.
As our culture continually sinks into an abyss of radical liberalism, Christians will be confronted with more opportunities to exercise faithfulness to God’s Word while reflecting behavior worthy of the calling set before us. We, like this regular woman who owns a yarn shop, will be given ample opportunity to speak of God’s truth, amazing grace, and forgiveness.
For the entire story concerning Elizabeth Poe and the hypocrisy of liberals, see https://afajournal.org/past-issues/2017/may/christian-yarn-shop-owner-in-franklin-tn-calls-out-nasty-feminists/
