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Resources -
GLBT Week 2006
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 When I Look In The Mirror
Who am I when I look in the mirror?…
I am a reflection of what you call me… woman, scholar, Mennonite, pastor, mother, feminist, wife.
If you can't hear how contradictory all those things are when you put them side by side, then you've never lived in my head. I am confused about how I feel inside...I feel guilty because I cannot relish homemaking as a calling... Is it possible that my own calling is important enough to take me away from my children, to ask them to sacrifice for my sake? Is it possible (I know it is, yet can it be?) that God would gift a woman as God would gift a man? And yet my studies are like streams in the desert to me...my calling is as clear as day... Will there be a place for me? Will my gender silence my voice?
I say it will not. I am Menno-queer, coming out as a called and competent woman who as something to say. I ask you to look past my gender and see my calling...don't treat my studies as though they were my hobby, something that gets me out of the house 'once in a while.' I am all of these things – woman, scholar, Mennonite, pastor, mother, feminist, wife - rolled into one. Honour me by not making me choose.
I feel constrained and limited, both by forces outside of my control and by forces within, like a butterfly who can't break free from her chrysalis. It shouldn't be this hard.
But in God's mirror, I can see my reflection clearer and no longer am I a distorted image…
I will stand on a mountain and declare my calling. I will be a beacon on a hill; an example for my daughter… and for my son… I will be faithful to the God who created me, who sees all things clearly.
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