BOBBED HAIR, BOSSY WIVES AND WOMEN PREACHERS

The first thing I remember really wanting to be when I grew up was a preacher. I had dozens of dolls, all of which I loved, none of which I particularly wanted to mother – I would line them up in rows like in straight-backed pews in front of a white wooden play crib which I stood on its end to resemble a pulpit. I would peel back the pages of The Daily Bread and I would read to them all from its platitudes. Dearly beloved – let us pray. Passionately, like I had heard my Grandpa had done when he was loving Jesus so much that he sweated straight through his suit jacket. I would pound. I would lean. I would watch the plastic faces for tears – for signs in flat eyes of conviction, for signs that the Holy Spirit was leading.

For a dozen reasons, not least of which was that I was a girl, not least of which was that I was afraid of the power of my voice, of my unbridled tongue, of my sass, of my too-big-for-your-britches, of my who do you think you are, not least of which was that I acquired early a taste for sin, I set that dream aside. I put away childish things.

 

I thought about becoming a lawyer.

It can take a long time to switch that question, What do you want to be? for What is the name of that plant growing within you? It can take a long time to wrap your arms around yourself, to say yes to the God thing seeded into you, to say yes to the knotting and the twining, and to the droughts that make the roots dig down deep for water. It can take a lot of years to learn that the Pruner’s shears are for you – for you, so that you might grow tall and straight and full, so that you don’t have to even think how to withstand fire and flood and famine.

And it can happen in one day – in one blaze of razing fire – that all the brambles and bird’s nests and the things others have built are removed to reveal what was there all along growing tender, low to the ground, deeply rooted in rich, blackened soil, already bearing fruit.

My novel is never going to be born – I am not going to live to be one hundred.

But I am not a novelist – I never, ever was. I am a preacher.

I have begun a new book. It is smaller, it is less impressive, it might fall the way of foolish things – but it is the berry born of the vine from the seed that was planted in me, stewarded to me by the hand of a loving God Who trusts me, Who believes in me, Who has invested deeply into me, Who has infinite time and a knack for knitting.

All things work together for good for those who love Him and are called to His purposes.