"I have always been open to callings. Call it a message from the universe, a higher power, or some energetic pull, I had always believed that my mind, heart, and soul were open to a message meant to guide me. Or at least, that is what I thought. In the small Baptist and Presbyterian world I grew up in between Galveston, Texas, and summers in North Carolina, faith was everything."
"I found myself falling in love with another girl. I felt a pull to the preacher's daughter. We bonded over our faith, but quickly realized there was more to our relationship than just being friends. We looked to each other in that confusing, sacred, secret space. We tried to unravel the tangled feelings of what felt so natural and pure, our love for each other, with the lessons from our childhood that homosexuality was a sin and the shame that came with it."
"Never mind the odds already felt stacked against me. As a woman, and as a Black woman in particular, I knew I would be entering spaces not always designed to affirm my being. But this was a challenge that motivated me even more to serve. At the same time as this calling, I was also feeling a pull towards something I had never realized or recognized within myself."
Raised between Galveston, Texas, and summers in North Carolina, the narrator grew up in Baptist and Presbyterian traditions with close family ties to church leadership. Faith structured childhood routines like Sunday school, choir, and revival services and fostered community, empathy, and healing. At sixteen, a strong calling to serve as a faith leader emerged despite awareness of gender and racial barriers. Simultaneously, the narrator developed a romantic relationship with another girl, the preacher's daughter, creating tension between authentic love and taught beliefs that homosexuality was sinful. The relationship ended when the partner denied it to protect her faith, causing profound erasure and a shattered faith.
Read at Advocate.com
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