When I'm Not Who They Say I Should Be

I remember one night sitting on the kitchen floor bawling my eyes out on the phone to a good friend. I was a person of strong faith and Christian education, but I felt totally lost. The Bible said women could not serve God and were even supposed to remain silent. Silent.

For so long I had I really felt a calling to ministry. I believed that God had sent me this message so clearly and there was no doubt about it. But now I was being told that I wasn’t allowed to follow this path, and all because of a word: woman. Female. Thrown at me as if it were an insult; demeaning me. My world was crumbling. All that I thought I knew was gone.

But, that night on the phone, my friend told me something that went beyond words, something that surpassed all limitations. She said “God made you exactly the way you are: every molecule in your body, every thought in your head, and every love in your heart.” And, she was right. And, how could that ever be wrong?

I came to realize that gender means nothing. Gender is what creates two different sections in the shoe store and looks at you strangely if you shop on the “other” side. Gender is what made my grandmother buy me an entire pink wardrobe when someone once thought I was a boy because I was wearing blue. Gender thinks it can tell us who it’s okay to love, and who we are supposed to hate.

But, the fact is, no one has the right to do that. No one has the right to limit me just by assigning me a label. I break free of those labels and limits. I am who I am; who God made me to be. And, I have found that the more I leave limitations behind, the freer I am to truly serve God and to be grateful for having being created “just as I am.”

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The opinions expressed within the LTS Allies site are those of the individual contributors. They should in no way be construed as the official position(s) of Lancaster Theological Seminary.