I’m new. I find myself saying this a lot lately. Do you ever feel this way? Like you’re starting over, doing some new thing, like trying on a new suit of clothes? I have been through so many iterations of me: daughter, student, airman, wife, mom, student, pastor, electronic technician, student, pastor … And some place in there, I became lesbian. Huh. Is this just another version of me, or is it a whole new reality?
This reality only began about seven years ago, and for six of those years, I managed to keep a pretty low profile. Confusion, shame and fear had to be waded through with questions, research and prayer rotating through my days. As time went by, I gathered my courage and ventured out — only a little out, you understand, but out — into a church. It was hard to sit there, still fearing God’s wrath, and reliving the shame, but desperate to worship in a congregation again. What I found at Westminster Congregational United Church of Christ was a Bible-preaching, God-fearing, Jesus-loving group of committed Christians who welcomed myself and my partner into their warm embrace.
As I wander out into the LGBTQ world — more and more out all the time — I find people just like me, people who love God, love their same-gender partner and who are desperately hurt and fearful. This new suit of clothes is scratchy and uncomfortable, but here I stand, and my sincere desire is to speak to, and maybe even for, those who wear the same suit of uncomfortable clothes.
The writer of the book of Colossians tells us that we have “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Re-new-ed. Made new again. But made new again, “in the image of its Creator.” Of all of the changes I have been through in the past, and all of the new changes I am going through, am I looking any more like my creator? Am I more patient, am I kinder, gentler, more compassionate, more humble? It doesn’t feel like I am, but hopefully, in some small ways, I am.
And now I am trying on another new suit of clothes, that of a writer. Although I have written sermons, and not more than 20 or so at that, those writings were meant to be spoken aloud, not read. In this space on SpokaneFAVS, I will try out writing for this online audience and we’ll just see how it goes. Perhaps the “iron sharpening iron” effect of the comments I receive will help to make me more patient; certainly, they will make me more humble.
