by Rev. Jennifer Yocum
PRIDE | SPIRIT
It had been almost a year since I’d seen her when the phone call came. “Hi,”
she said, “I don’t know if you remember me, but I came to see you a couple of
times last year.”
I did remember her. We’d met during the Coffee Shop ministry now called
“The Pastor’s Pint” where I plant myself in a local pub or coffeehouse on
Wednesday afternoons to talk to whomever comes by. She’d come at my invi-
tation to talk about faith, which is to say “trust in the presence of a loving God.”
The Gift of Faith
Churched folk see faith as a gift. Christian faith gets shared through stories
that happen in the Bible and in life; faith gets sung into hymns and rock and
roll; faith gets seen in the goodness of creation, but some people add a dark
side. “Faith,” they say, “is incompatible with certain lifestyles.”
Two strangers,
One short chat
So she’d been taught. And because “certain lifestyles” included her sexual ori-
entation, she’d suffered for it. Yet she still yearned for relationship with the
Holy.
We talked. I spoke about the Bible’s social and historical context. The Bible
as a whole says very little about what we would call “homosexuality.” Most of
what it does say is rooted in cultural practice that was either non-Jewish (in
the time of Leviticus) or exploitative (in the time of Paul.) I talked about our
church being a place where, no matter who you are or where you are on life’s
journey, you are welcome here.
She spoke about being kicked out of her church and being shunned by her
family. She talked about hoping to reclaim her trust in a loving God, but think-
ing that God could not love her because of who she was. She also talked about
drinking, drinking a lot, to hide the pain of her Godforsaken-ness.
Staff Photo
I told her that God loved her, no matter what. I also told her that I was wor-
ried about her drinking. I recommended books, groups, and AA. Then she
left town.
Rev. Jennifer Yocum is pastor of the Forest Grove United Church of
Christ-. No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey
you are welcome here. www.fgucc.org
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JustOut.com
“I don’t know if you remember me,” she’d said on the phone. But I did re-
member her thin shoulders, hunched over her tea cup as though anticipating a
blow. I remember her looking so lost and scared and beaten up in her soul. I
remember praying for her to find her way to new life.
“I don’t know if you remember me,” she said, “but I’ve thought about you a few
times since I moved and I just found your phone number. I wanted to tell you
that I’ve been sober for six months and that I’ve found a spiritual group that
I meet with every month. And my life is going well, so I thought you’d want
to know.”
This is a story of resurrection, redemption and release. A story of light over-
coming the darkness and a new life of truth overwhelming the pain and lies
of the past. I think maybe I’ll remember that. I think that I won’t ever forget.
Amen.
June 2012