Not bad for a girl

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I preached at the church where I worship this past weekend. I love preaching. I wish I could say it’s entirely so I can share God’s Word with people. I really honestly do wish I could say that. But, part of me also loves doing it because I know I’m good at it — and I like it when other people affirm that I’m good at it. Perhaps that mix of reasons is okay. Maybe God made me good at it and He loves that I love it. I suppose there are worse things in life I could be shooting my mouth off about. I pray everytime that He can at least agree with what I’ve said. If He’s proud of me and agrees, even better.

A visitor to our church came up to me after worship. I’d never met him before but I saw him coming. He dressed kind of like one of the characters from Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman and I got the distinct impression that his opinion about professional women might be equally as traditional. For sure preaching would be up there on the “top ten things women should not do” list.

“I’ve never thought women should preach,” he said. Yep, I’m so ridiculously perceptive sometimes.

“How are you?” I asked. This might seem like a stupid response to his statement. I thought maybe he might have ruptured his spleen during the sermon though, or caught a glimpse of us all of getting sucked into the gates of hell if I hadn’t finished when I did. In either case, I was concerned that he might be in need of some pastoral care. And, well, here I was all conveniently available.

“You just might be able to change my mind,” he said shaking his head matter-of-factly. I could tell the compliment came from a way deep down place in him somewhere and it had been a little painful to confess. God had flipped something in his world upside down that morning and he had been open to hear it. I smiled and shook his hand warmly. God had something going on in there. “Thank you,” I said, “My name is Dana.” He grinned and we chatted about the weather for a while.

I wonder sometimes who we thought we were when we defined for God how he could and could not use some people. I wonder too if God has ever uttered a curse word because He had the perfect gift mix and personality for something great and then the kid ended up being born as a female. I wonder if we were more concerned about the Kingdom and less concerned about the institutional church, if we would care who God called to do what — just so long as we all did it.

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