Baby Sahara & Women in Ministry

I never thought I’d have a girl.  I’ve always thought I’d raise boys & basically so did everyone else.  I wasn’t a girly girl & I’m not a particularly womany woman.  My ears aren’t pierced; I wear very little makeup & even less jewelry.  I almost never put on perfume & have less than a dozen pairs of shoes & only one functional purse (right now).  I can’t attest to how extensively or not I played mommy or house, but I do know I didn’t daydream about my wedding or dress or create a fairytale life binder I saw built by some others around me.  I didn’t seem to get wrapped up in whatever it was girls my age cared about.  It’s not that I didn’t want to kiss the boys, I just didn’t want to kiss any of the boys I knew. However on many fronts they were still preferred companions to the girls (no offense ladies)… less games, they kept it real.  I was told by those who knew me, “you’ll have half a dozen boys,” “you’ll run a boys orphanage.”  Yet here I am 30 weeks pregnant today with our second child & she’s a girl.  Her name is Sahara.

 

At first I was shocked & confused.  Having a girl didn’t make sense.  Our life was in transition & needed to be managed more with simplification than complication.  We have a boy already; we have boys’ clothes & linens & accessories.  My husband is a man & I’ve always related better to men.  Women, I’ve finally come to terms with, but girls… I wondered if I could ever come to terms with girls.

In these last 10 weeks though since I first received this news, as women in healthy situations usually do, I fell in love with this baby I’m carrying… this baby girl.

 

And being in love with this baby girl has made me start to consider things I’ve always sidestepped in the past, some important issues of practical theology.

I’m a believer in Jesus Christ & have been since I was old enough to understand sin & consequences & redemption.  My family members are believers & we were raised in conservative Christian Southern Baptist churches.  I felt uniquely called to the ministry when I was in high school & discovered others around me had ideas about what that meant, but I’d already observed 3 types of “callings,” if you will, for women who end up in ministry:

1.    They marry a man who is or ends up becoming a minister.  They’re “called” to the man, not the ministry per se. (my pastor’s wife growing up)

2.    They aim to marry a man who is or has professed he’s going into ministry.  They’re called to marry a minister, i.e. “I feel called to be a pastor’s wife.” (my sister)

3.    They uniquely are called to ministry whether or not they marry or whether or not if they marry their spouse is in the ministry & if they do marry & their spouse is in the ministry, they may end up serving in a different ministry.

That 3^rd one is me.  I’ve known it all along & my now husband knew, understood & agreed with it in my life before we even dated, which was particularly important to me since he was raised by a #2.

Herein lays the issue.  Southern Baptists are a bit notorious for not supporting women in ministry, at least not in the way I understand it.  It’s all well & good if you’re lucky enough to be a single missionary somewhere overseas, but the story changes if you’re married & even more so if you’re stateside, regardless of your marital status.  Children’s ministry or women to women ministry is usually acceptable, though perhaps still a step-child to the body of believers’ more important tasks & you will in no doubt be a “Director” because terminology helps people not get the wrong idea. (Not true of our last church who also very graciously licensed me to ministry related to my work in our local county jail.)

Up until recently this still had not been a big issue for me (apart from the “discussions” I have periodically with others).  Why?  I’m not one to be overly uncomfortable as a minority, a position that challenges my beliefs & helps me know if they hold credence in my life.  I don’t usually seek to be divisive.  I’m not a people pleaser.  My confidence & value, if I’m healthy, comes from a different source.  The real scapegoat though is because I’ve always felt led to & have served predominantly in parachurch ministries, where frequently my fellow church goers are not, or are certainly not in mass & the ones that are present are only too glad to have me around.

But that’s all changing… because now I’m pregnant again & this time I’m pregnant with a girl, a girl who will in all likelihood grow up in a Southern Baptist church.

I can no longer avoid this controversial issue related to gender, roles & women in ministry.  God willing, very soon we will have a young woman to raise in our home & I want her to have confidence before her God, herself & others.  I want to help minimize confusion that she may be confronted with regarding who she is or is not created to be.

It’s clearly (past) time to step out of my laziness, to pray, study, listen, wrestle & write as I seek to engage this sensitive subject.

I’m thankful to the Lord for his prompting through the precious life of our wee Sahara.