In church, I was always my parents’ daughter, then I was Pastor Brian’s wife, then I was a phantom, here today and gone next week for good. I had friends, but I loved my armor more. And I never really felt like anyone knew me—even more, I felt like if they did know me, they wouldn’t like me. I was too opinionated, too artistic, too quick to question, too something, too everything. But somehow, for the first time, I feel like I’m on my own two feet here, like it’s my church, too, and my life is seamless.
This community recognizes me, has welcomed us, they know my name, they even affirm my calling and vocation as a writer. And I don’t mean that to be weird or prideful, quite the contrary. I feel stupid and ridiculous when it happens, when someone says something about my blog here or that book I’m writing, like I’m a pretender, let’s change the subject.
But maybe you can relate because when, for your entire life, you have this one thing that you do always, one thing that you feel good at doing, and then for the first time, someone in your real life, in your real church, notices and says, yes, you’re good at it, and we welcome your gift, we affirm it, we see God at work in you.
Well. I have no words. It meant the world to me. I can’t remember too many churches that do that for women or for artists or for those of us that aren’t the typical Leadership 101 Jesus-as-CEO-types, at least, not for me.
I was asked to write the testimonies for our service today, a true honor and I could not take it lightly. I usually bang out a post in 20 minutes, but now I was agonizing. I’ve spent the last two or three weeks with the stories of three families in our community, writing them out, crying over them, a bundle of nerves. Because even though I write here in this space, daily baring my soul to a few thousand souls, the thought of getting on stage, in front of 200 people I see weekly, sometimes daily, at dance lessons and the park, at Bible study and the grocery store, to talk, oh, it made my knees knock.
But that day, I did it.
