When I was a child, I loved learning, and teaching, and math, and God. So it stands to follow that I idolized teachers and missionaries, and those who were both ranked highest in my mind. Most career choices don’t start with altar calls, but mine did. So when they happened, I went, every time. I felt so connected to the church. It felt like the best way to love and serve. I am sure the church pushed that all careers are important and certain careers aren’t more spiritual than others, but my one track mind didn’t pick up on them. I had one goal in mind and I ran with it. The church rallied around me. I was focused and loved and a part of something.
But now that is gone. Am I less of a person because it feels my goal has changed? Can who I was as a child and who I am now both be beautiful and good and based on loving God even if they aren’t the same? I love who I have become and who I am becoming. I love what work God has done in me. And yet I feel tension because I don’t feel like I am on the path I had started on and that feels wrong, like I have disappointed those who had helped me along that path. Can I be grateful for every step that has brought me to here?
Rachel Held Evans says in her intro to Evolving in Monkey Town
I was a fundamentalist because my security and self-worth and sense of purpose in life were all wrapped up in getting God right — in believing the right things about him, saying the right things about him, and convincing others to embrace the right things about him too. Good Christians, I believed, don’t succumb to the shifting sands of culture. Good Christians, I used to think, don’t change their minds….The problem with fundamentalist is that it can’t adapt or change.
I’m an evolutionist because I believe that sometimes God uses changes in the environment to pry idols from our grip and teach us something new. ..If it hadn’t been for evolution, I might have lost my faith.
So, I am no longer a fundamentalist but yet I still think like one. It’s comforting to have black and white answers and think there are clear right and wrong choices.
A few days ago, in choir, we sang an unfamiliar hymn that spoke to me where I was at.
“I was there to hear your borning cry,
I’ll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.
I was there when you were but a child,
with a faith to suit you well;
In a blaze of light you wandered off
to find where demons dwell.””When you heard the wonder of the Word
I was there to cheer you on;
You were raised to praise the living Lord,
to whom you now belong.
If you find someone to share your time
and you join your hearts as one,
I’ll be there to make your verses rhyme
from dusk ’till rising sun.”In the middle ages of your life,
not too old, no longer young,
I’ll be there to guide you through the night,
complete what I’ve begun.
When the evening gently closes in,
and you shut your weary eyes,
I’ll be there as I have always been
with just one more surprise.””I was there to hear your borning cry,
I’ll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.”
God was there when I was a child. My faith then was authentic and real and was the best I could do with the knowledge and tools that I had. I couldn’t have done any differently. And now that I am here, no longer young, but not yet old, He is here in my process of growing and discovering and learning. I was doing the best I can back then and I am still doing that today.
I feel like as a child, I was at a trail head where many hiking trails begin. God pointed to a path on the map and said, “You love me, and you love people, this is the one for you.” So I glanced at the map legend and thought the name of the trail was missions and struck out with confidence. Every time my path neared another person, I proudly declared the path I was on and they cheered me forward. Every time there was a split in the path, I would ask God, which of these would help me to love Him and love people better and I would choose it.
Photo from here
Recently, I started paying attention to the sign posts along this trail and realized this path doesn’t have the name I originally thought it did. Frantically, I have thought back along my path seeking for the place I went wrong. Where did I stop listening to God or asking for direction? Where did I step off my path? Where did I decide not to be me, not to love God, and not to love people? And I can’t find it. Sure, I have made mistakes along the way where I stepped in the mud but ultimately I find peace from God that I am still on his chosen path for me. I haven’t strayed or wandered away. But God has nudged that maybe I misread the map legend at the very beginning…maybe my cursory glance caught the name that I thought was most loving of God and people and just assumed that was the name for the trail God choose for me. Maybe I had just been telling everyone the wrong name for my path. And maybe the name or destination doesn’t really matter. What matters is the journey, all the little decisions along the way. What matters is being faithful to the person I am called to be no matter where I am headed.
I am in a place I never thought I would end up. I am a member of a minority, the LGTBQ+ community. I have a wife. And my wife doesn’t share my faith in God. And yet, I am still the same girl that began this journey. I still love God and I still love people, both with everything I have and everything I am. I am bridging gaps. I am finding truth and love and God in unexpected places and I will share that with anyone who comes my way and wants to hear. So maybe missions can still be a honest name for this trail God has chosen for me. What matters most to me right now is that its name doesn’t define who I am. I want to shine God’s light and give others permission to do so as well.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel unsure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. As we let our own Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. – Marianne Williamson