For Such A Time As This
May 7, 2008
When I wrote the other day that I believe we are who we are and we love who we love because it’s by God’s design and for God’s purpose that we’re GLBTQ people; when I called being gay a divine calling, a holy vocation and for the sake of the Gospel, I was saying I believe all that today but I haven’t always.
I didn’t believe being gay was a gift when after 15 years of full-time ministry as a children’s pastor the senior pastor called me into his office and said “For your remaining two weeks as the children’s pastor at the church, I need to ask that you not be alone with any of the children; that you do what you can to avoid being with them at all.”
I had no confidence that being queer was a divine calling when the Christian publishing company called to inform me that while they still wanted to purchase my Christian Education program for national distribution it could only be under the condition that my name not appear as the author because they couldn’t risk having their evangelical market discover the material had been written by a homosexual.
I couldn’t have imagined it was God’s plan I was a lesbian when a Christian educator’s organization passed along word to me that despite having been one of their most popular workshop presenters over the previous six years, they were putting me on notice that they knew I was gay and therefore never again would be asked to speak at their annual conference or participate in any manner whatsoever.
I didn’t dare believe my sexuality was for the sake of the Gospel when it came time to receive the annual application to renew my denominational ministerial license in the mail and my mailbox remained empty; when a loved one who had supported my ministry from the beginning coldly said I should never have entered the ministry at all; or when I closed the door for a final time on an emptied church office where I’d counseled with parents and loved on their children through the main part of my adult years.
For all these reasons and for others held too close to my heart to openly share, I know that calling our sexuality a divine gift, a holy calling, God’s plan, and our purpose can be a challenge when the internal messages and external circumstances seem to reflect a different reality. I really do get it which is all the more reason why I admire you for taking on the challenge to believe something different if only for four days or for two.
All that I mentioned above came about in the first two months following my own coming out as a lesbian. While I had already come to peace concerning being a Christian and a lesbian, I understood my sexuality at that time as something more akin to a burden than a blessing, an oops of God rather than a gift of God. After all, it was coming at such a high price and then there was all that had been lost around my ministry. I had loved the ministry and that my greatest responsibility in my call had been to simply love people and tell of God’s even greater love for them. I couldn’t help wonder if the most meaningful and rewarding years of ministry were behind me.
Haman had tricked King Xeres into issuing a decree that would lead to the destruction of all the Jews. When Mordacai learned of Haman’s plot he sent a messenger to Queen Esther his niece, a closeted Jew, that she should petition her husband the king for the salvation of the Jews. When fear caused Esther to resist the idea, the message Mordacai sent back to her was this:
Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)
Uncle Mordacai dares to suggest that the reason Esther had ever become queen, gaining privilege and renown might well have been for this very moment by placing her into a position where she could save her people, bringing relief and deliverance to the oppressed.
I read this passage one evening during my personal devotional time and something about it grabbed hold of me. Several weeks later I went to a GLBTQ Christian gathering where Marsha Stevens was the keynote speaker. Marsha told of her early years in Christian music when the Jesus Movement exploded and we (the currently middle-aged we) were all listening to Christian groups like Love Song, Second Chapter of Acts, and Children of the Day. She’d written the song, “For Those Tears I Died” while still in her teens, a song that was part of my own youth, playing it over and over again on my clunky 8-Track, strumming it’s simple chords on my acoustic guitar, and carrying the alto line in the church youth choir. Marsha recounted how after coming out as a lesbian she began to receive packages in the mail from churches around the country, filled with copies of her song torn from church hymnals and song books in angry protest upon learning the song writer was gay. In the midst of what must have been a devastating time in her life, Marsha turned to the story of Esther and the words “For such a time as this” rattled inside her, and rather than grieving the past success in ministry she’s once experienced, Marsha continued on to sing and proclaim the Gospel message as an out lesbian Christian and to establish a ministry that’s taken her around the world, healing and blessing the lives of countless GLBTQ and straight people. Marsha believed that all her past successes and accomplishments had been to prepare her for such a time as this.
For such a time as this. The phrase bounced around in my heart for days and then months and when it came to finally rest the idea that being gay was the purposeful intention of God for my life replaced the sense that my sexual orientation was merely a fluke or a flaw. I could never have imagined doing anything in ministry more rewarding or meaningful than all those years of pastoring children and their families, but then I could have never imagined the utter joy of the opportunities I’ve been given in recent years to proclaim God’s unconditional love to GLBTQ people or to anyone for that matter who needs to hear the message of the love of God, the message of the Gospel.
So many doors closed years ago but even more have been opening ever since. I’m an ordained clergywoman. I officiate at the table. There have been opportunities to preach in church and lead workshops designed for GLBTQ Christians. Every Sunday morning, I scrunch down onto a small carpet circle in the front of the church and gather another generation children around me to tell them how precious they are to God and how great is God’s love for them. And then there’s this online ministry. How would have thought this up but God? I could never have imagined or thought to ask to be part of anything like this nor can I ever tell the joy I feel when even one woman writes to say that something here has helped her draw a little closer to God. It makes my knees weak every time. In the end I lost nothing in coming out that wasn’t given back to me in extravagant abundance.
Everyone is called by God and we spend our lives seeking to live into that calling; to discover our way of being the presence of Christ in the world. The calling doesn’t stop the day we come out. The voice of God isn’t silenced even in the closet. God’s hand is on you. God’s spirit within you. God’s anointing upon you. Who you are is the very person God needs for you to be in this world. You have a way of speaking and living God’s love that will touch someone in a way that my life and others lives simply couldn’t do. Your life reflects a particular angle of God’s character and being that’s the exact angle someone else needs desperately to see. These might sound like sentimental words but they’re also very real. Nothing in your life is unusable to God. Nothing is less than a gift when devoted to God’s glory.
Whatever you’ve done in the past, wherever the present finds you, God has called you…for such a time as this.
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Posted in Christian Lesbian Identity, Coming Out, Gifted by Otherness, Queering the Bible, Special Series
May 7th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Wow. Incredible. I’m almost speechless. Everything you just shared has touched my heart in a way I can’t really even described right now. Thank you.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I have just read through the past couple of entries again. I am so touched by your openness and honesty about what you have gone through. And to challenge us to do the same. I love what you wrote here and I also went to Marsha’s website. Wow! I admire both of you. I know that you are taking the gifts God has given you and sharing with us. What a blessing…
I just thought of something, (and corny as this is going to sound I am very simple minded) that it is kind of like a huge jigsaw puzzle and we are all the pieces of this huge puzzle. We all come in different sizes, shapes, color, gender whatever. But every piece is needed to complete the puzzle. We may get turned around for a bit, but we each have a special spot just for us. And a hole is there when a piece is missing. (sorry I am a big jigsaw puzzle person). And we as people, part of Gods big picture, become who God really wants us to be when we allow ourselves to become part of the whole instead of a solitary piece. (too corny I know)… I know in working puzzles, I will hunt and hunt until the last piece is found.
Thank you for being who you are and letting us see into your world.
May 7th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I am going to link this to a new blog that has started, closetsnomore.blogspot.com.
Thank you so much for you story.
May 7th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Wow! I appreciate this post on many levels: your own candor, the usuage of an OT story (and I’m in a relationship with a Jewish woman, so I am *very* familiar with the OT stories!) and then just reflecting as I read on where I’m at in my own journey. I continue to be in awe, and rejoicing, at the idea that eternal life in Christ is there for me…me! Not just the person next to me; me! I long ago reconciled that God didn’t make an “oops” with me. Getting my denomination, particularly as practiced in the Deep South, to agree that my sexuality (or any sexuality) is a gift and not an oops from God has been the bigger challenge.
Thanks be to God that you have found your place in the body of Christ, and can offer the wisdom of your experience with all of us. And I praise Him, too, for the gifts he has given me and continues to give me every day.
May 8th, 2008 at 12:05 am
Wow. First of all thank you! I’ve been searching my heart for weeks, and this is exactly what I needed to hear! Sometimes God’s grace overwhelms me.
I’m currently in college and work with highschool kids through a christian volunteer organization. I love what I do, I love have the oppurtunity each day to share the love of Christ with teens who have never encountered people who don’t have some agenda or personal motive other than spreading God’s love. It is a tremendous blessing that has changed me forever.
I really only came to terms with being gay in the last 6 months, and I’ve really struggled with how that fits into my life as a christian servant. Were I to be out, I would not be welcome in the organization that I work with (not to mention the other implications it would have in my life, of course).
Right now I truly believe that this is my current calling. I’m willing to stay closeted for awhile, so that I can do what I need to be doing right now. But a few years on down the line, I want and need to be out. I want to be genuine, and enjoy my life, and celebrate the things and people that I love. Before, reading this I assumed that the years I spent closeted were my service to God, and that what came after would be about me and my needs. Thank you for introducing me to the idea that I can still be a christian servant after I’m out. It has been incredibly heartbreaking over the last few months to think that because of my sexuality, I won’t be able to help people in the same way.
Thank you again, you’ve blessed me beyond words!
May 8th, 2008 at 3:53 am
Yet again, I come undone. No words, I just need to soak it in for a bit I think.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:06 am
Wow… This is a beautiful post. You know, this may seem odd, but there are times when I think about how connected I feel to the homosexual’s struggle to be accepted in the Church and I wonder why I’m not gay. And then I remember that we all need each other, that heterosexuals have things to learn from homosexuals and vice versa.
Isn’t it beautiful how God makes it all click into place? It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:16 am
YES!! I have so much to say, but find it is just under a vail of tears. But, everything is better, very much better.
thank you.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Phenomenal. God bless you, Anita.
May 8th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Steph, Joni, and Deb–> I’m so glad the past few days have been a positive (and apparently) emotional time for you. I
hopepray that you’re getting some sense that what you’ve been experiencing in the short-term might be something that carries on for you in the coming days, months and years. I’m so glad you’re here with us.JB–> Thank you for writing and you never need apologize for a metaphor around here. It’s the way I understand things best. Concrete over conceptional for me any day of the week! I like the puzzle image because it really does highlight that a) every piece is needed in the puzzle, and b) every piece has it’s own unique design and a unique space that only it can fill. Love that JB!
Jadedjabber–> Thanks for stopping by and for linking to the site here. I really appreciate it.
Susan–>Thanks for writing Susan and sharing all that you did. The Hebrew Testament is so rich with characters in love with God but who are such total messes at other times. I can so relate! Susan, for me personally, I think the hardest people we’ll ever have to win over to accepting that our sexuality is a gift is ourselves, and once we’ve done that, we have the grounding and strength to hang in for the long haul while we witness to the truth of our lives to our denominations or churches. It starts with us and then moves out from them, not one denomination or church at a time but one heart after another heart after another heart. We have plenty to keep us busy!
Karen–>Welcome Karen and yes, God’s grace is pretty overwhelming! It sounds like you’re doing amazing work with youth and you’re so right…they can sniff out when we “want something” from them and so it must be so refreshing as a young person to just know someone is there for no other reason than to love on them and share God’s love with them. Karen, I think it’s really important that you understand your ministry at this time as your “current” calling because at some point if you come out and that ministry door closes to you, you’ll know that your calling continues but in another form. What you’re doing right now is only an expression and vehicle for your calling and while people in leadership can remove you from a particular ministry, no one can ever remove God’s calling from you. Thank you so much for sharing all that you did…powerful stuff!
Lindsey–>Thanks so much. I think most of us, gay and straight, feel at times like if everything was known about us; if we fully lived into who we are and boldly lived into and expressed our ideas, our convictions, our passions, the church wouldn’t accept us. I think we all have something and it just so happens that for GLBTQ people the “something” the church has issue with is right out there, front and center. But we don’t own a monopoly on being pushed to the sidelines so it makes perfect sense to me, particular after following your blog, that you’d find yourself sharing in the same type of struggle as we do. Welcome to it Girlfriend!
John–> Oh stop it. On second thought, don’t. Ever!
May 9th, 2008 at 5:23 am
Wow, Anita. Beautifully lived, beautifully told. Bless you.
May 11th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Anita, List Mother and friend,
For such a time as this ….. when we were quarantened recently for 6 weeks I definitely could not see that as a blessing in disguise. Yet that’s what is was. We, my partner and I, actually spent that time serving each other, as our illness allowed us, with food and encouragement.
During that time we discovered what it is like to be distanced from all communial spiritual resources, and from the laughter and sharing of friends.
And when our time of isolation was over, God had reaffirmed to me the need to continue the outreach ministry to which I had been called so many years ago. For once again, knowing how one hungers for the living word of God, I realised why folk who are isolated by illness, geography or imprisonment check their mailboxes so eagerly for the spiritual food God chooses for me to supply.
For such a time as this ….. for such a time as we wipe away our own tears so we may wipe away the tears of others. Shalom, Vera