The Broken Heart - Part 3

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I am standing up in front of 100 people at my church during a Q+A on “Why we are complementarians."

ME: What would you say to a woman like me who is called to preach behind the pulpit on a Sunday morning?

PASTOR: We would need to sit down and have a serious conversation about what you think you heard when you say you were called.

He implied that…God does not call women to preach; therefore, whatever I “heard” wasn't from God, therefore I must be crazy and heard some other voice. So, we can talk about my crazy, but he won’t be asking me to preach EVER.

I was stunned into silence; I expected him to carve out some exceptions. But no, in his mind the only answer to my gifting and calling was that I am confused or even mentally imbalanced. My family and I never went back to that church. But if I am honest, I think I had been leaving for a while.

Growing up in the church and working for a parachurch ministry, I had tried to fit into the box they designed for me–and all women. If only I were smaller, quieter, less powerful… If I could ignore my grief, my wounds, my gut, maybe I would meet their expectations… If I could shut up more than I did, then I would be welcome… If I were just less of me, I would fit.

This was an impossible task, so I got out of the box and walked away.

I was free. I was lonely. I questioned my choices. I fell to my knees in lament.

God, this can’t be what you intended for the Church, can it?

Why would you call me to something that doesn't want me?

Why do I still want them to want me?

God loves me. God made me with this gifting, personality, intelligence, and optimism. God does not make useless things. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with me. I am the very image of God; no one can change, control, or limit that fact.

Learning these lessons took countless books, scholarly works, and four years of seminary. It took people loving me unconditionally. It took longtime mentors and even strangers telling me to live out of who God says that I am, not what other people tell me to be. These lessons are hard-fought and won; learning them patched up my wounds but left some scars.

I didn’t know I was looking for a new theology that would allow some space for me to make sense, but I was. I  kept running into systems that tried to make God small. God is not small. Every denomination or theological system throughout history that has tried to put God in a tiny little box fails. Systems eventually break down, but stories live forever.

This is God’s Story: God created a perfect world, but the world became broken. Human beings participate in that brokenness. But in an extraordinary act of love, God has chosen to work in and through and with human beings to put the broken world back together.

This is a story that never breaks, ends, or contradicts itself. It's a story that smashes every form of hierarchy and oppression. It’s a story that honors the leadership, gifting, and ministry of women. It destroys the boxes we make for ourselves, for others, for God. It's a story that honors every piece of creation. It’s a love story.

Humans can participate in this transformational Story by loving God, loving themselves, loving all human beings, and loving the planet we live on.

By seeing the whole of life through the lens of love, we gain a perspective that matches God’s intention for the world. And what's more, we gain our full humanity–ourselves just as God intended us to be. Living in love, according to God’s story, I am safe, I am free, I am me, and I can live in love with the world around me.

You know what's hard, like really hard, taking off the armor you have built up your entire life to stay safe. Taking off my armor was an act of loving myself.

Declaring the war over and armor no longer necessary was an act of loving others. I love all the people who stayed in that church, in that ministry, in that way of thinking. Not everyone has come to know what I know or will ever believe what I believe. That's ok, that part is not up to me. My only responsibility is love. To love is to live!

I am still called to minister, mentor, teach, and preach. None of that has changed, and occasionally it happens behind a pulpit on a Sunday morning. But I am not called to pastor a congregation–to be inside a church. My calling is to the outside of the inside. I am called to walk outside her walls, welcoming those who can’t stay small any longer. I pace and hope that one day the walls will be no more.

All too often, those hurt by the high walls and even higher expectations are women. Unfortunately, the way women have been raised in many churches ties up their identity, desires, and gifting to this one theology, one church, or one denomination. For women to come to believe differently is a process that is so internally disruptive I equate it with a miscarriage. For many women, it is an internal wound and not just a theological shift. For all of us pleading for the church to be as it should be, it's painful.

I am called to tell those who are curious that leaving a church, a denomination, or a community doesn’t mean you have to leave your faith behind. I tell them there is hope, wounds heal, you are stronger than you think you are. There is nowhere you can go where God is not already there. So, you can walk away, and don’t worry about going back-maybe you will, maybe you won’t. God goes with you wherever you go.

Churches don't like it when I say it's ok to leave. It mucks up the system; it means fewer butts in the seats and less money in the offering plate. Sorry, I’m not sorry. I work for God and not a church.

This is how I live my call to the Church: I show up as my full self, live out of who God says that I am, and love the people God puts on my path. I  keep hanging around the outside of the inside, hoping that one day she will burst beyond her walls.

None of this is easy, by the way. It's lonely, and encouragement is hard to come by–though my conviction is never in short supply. I have days where I question all of it. I go right back to those wounds, wondering if I am crazy, missing the ministries I grew up in, wanting them to want me.

Then the lions roar.

Lady lions specifically–a whole pride of them. They are my Cloud of Witnesses more accurately, my Pride of Witnesses. When they roar, I hear the truth! I remember their stories. I clearly hear my call.

My Pride of Witnesses has grown over the years. Their names are Deborah, Catherine, Susan, Phoebe, Dorothy, Miriam, Jackie, Anna, Rachel, Junia, Huldah, Wilda, Justa, Kit, Sarah, Priscilla, Amy, Therese, Hildegard, Mary, Julian, Simone; I could go on and on…

Whenever I hear their stories, I am reminded of the long legacy of women in God’s love story. No matter what is happening in history, no matter what people say about them, women keep doing, they keep serving, they keep telling the truth, they keep roaring. And so will I.

I will carry the hope I have for the church; I will let love win; I will live out of who God says that I am.