So call me whatever you want

I edited this post a bit after Leisel's comment and some serious thinking...

When I began blogging, my primary audience was Calvin Crest folks, my high school friends, and the occasional college peer. My entries were sometimes more candid, more introspective, and perhaps sometimes too personal. When I discovered my blog base extended to family, friends, First Pres Bakersfield, and people who spend too much time on Facebook ;), I changed the way I write a little bit. Perhaps more conservative, definitely less threatening. And occasionally I want to write about things that perhaps the Bakersfield Californian would not be so interested to read. I am fine with all this, really - I am blessed to have a variety of readers. I feel like I understand vulnerability to a whole new level. I did, after all, write an entire blog entry about sex (for those of you new to the blog - ahem, my in-laws ;), the entry was about struggling with purity, not about having it) and I heard about it from my grandma later (who was actually very supportive)...

All that to say...

I want to write about something controversial, but not for the sake of being controversial. I pray my wrestlings would bring me closer to the heart of God and the truth of His plan rather than produce a clanging cymbal through the keyboard.

My thoughts lately turn to the age long controversy of the female role in the Church. Now, if you've read my essay on the Apostle Paul and the way he addresses women in ministry, you know that I believe both Jesus and Paul administered women to roles of teaching and leadership in the early church that were considered very radical. To be perfectly honest, I am very confident in God's call both in my life as a minister of the Gospel and in His call to other woman to be in positions of leadership in the Church. I wrestle no more in my own search to know God's heart for the other half of His Image.

And yet I find myself once again in a place where my soul is reminded that the way I see things (hopefully through Christ's eyes) and the way that Christian culture, some doctrine, churches, etc. see things at times, vastly differ. I don't see in motion that which I believe Christ encourages.

At the Sunday evening church-wide meeting, a new position is being discussed. An administrative pastor is needed to take the load off the pastoral care pastor. A woman raises her hand and asks, "Even though the title has the word 'pastor' in it, can a woman take the job?" My husband noticed my frustration as my hand clenched his tightly. I walk into staff meetings, and, save the secretaries & children's director (and, by the way, I LOVE this staff), I'm the only woman... as is true in most churches. When the youth pastors get together across the city, a congregation of men meet. The ballot for elders is men only (I forgot how "liberal" those Presbyterians could be with their female elders;)). This is our culture. Please note: I love these people. I am so very blessed to now belong to this congregation and the pastoral staff is Godly in the truest sense of the word. My frustration is not against specific people or the men who take leadership in the Church. The reality is - well, this is the reality and this has been reality... for a really long time.

I don't feel like God has given me a heart and a passion for the empowerment of women for no reason. Nor do I feel like He has led me into full-time ministry without Divine purpose. Even now I close my eyes and whisper that my heart would be His and that these words would reflect His character.

...

I plan to have kids some day. I don't know when. But someday (God willing), I will hold a small child in my arms, sing it lullabies, and rock it to sleep. I will be a mother just like most women in this world were created to be. To be honest, this desire is somewhat new for me. I think in my mind I always figured I would raise kids with my husband and live some kind of life being a mother and wife, and in the back of my head I always wondered, but God, what about ministry? What about grad school? What about these dreams? What about my desire to empower women and to reveal historical truths about your Word? And then the light bulb finally turned on as I watched baby Kana romp around with all of his drool spilling onto the hardware floor. Be the woman you want to empower. If I am to be a vessel of God as a minister to the Church, and if I want to advocate for female leadership in the Church (or whatever have you), then I am going to have to be a "normal" woman. Normal in the sense that most women on this earth, with the exception of some (who I do not consider "abnormal"), are mothers or will become mothers. What good am I if I expect to see change within the Church and I am not that change? I believe women are just as capable at preaching God's word at the pulpit as men, and I don't think they have to be women who choose not to bear children or get married.

Suddenly I find myself relieved. And blessed. I get to do ministry with my husband for two years. A husband who, on a road trip to the REI in Portland before we were married, listened to me sobbing my concerns and fears with being a wife and mother and desiring a Phd (which, let's be honest, who knows if that is still in God's plan for me) said to me, "You can do that. I plan on helping you get there." A husband who lets me taste what God had planned when he meant for men and women to be helpers. A companion. Yes I am blessed. I continue to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, and God continues to give me glimpses of His vision and of His Divine Glory.



p.s. - for all you wondering, no, kids are not in the near future unless God wills it and does some Divine intervention