Pastor Filipina

Today is my first round of interviews. What a Holy time it is to be alive. I feel like I am on the threshold awaiting and precipitating something grand about to happen. I could feel my heart beating in escalation as my fingers tense up. What a joy it is to be at this point in time in my life, what a fear-stretching moment this time is. I could feel the roof of my mouth tensing up and smile widening. I am unsure of what to expect. While at the same time I could imagine the things they are going to ask me.

What am I excited for?

I am excited to become a pastor in a city with people. I am excited that there is an opportunity for me to share of the gospel in a way that amplifies the voices of those who many have barricaded from being heard. I am excited that I am following my call to bring justice and joy, prophetic truths, and soul-filled conversation into the room. I am excited that people trust me. I am excited that people trust me. I had to say that a second time because wow does that resound bells within me. People not only trust me, they affirm my gifts, they speak accolades of my work, and they gift me with gifts at time.

I am not so special that I deserve all of this attention. Sometimes I think the main things that separate me from others is that I lean into the challenges. I lean in when everything gets really tough. I lean into the difficulties even when it is scary. The challenges are where the growth opportunities occur. Those hard and difficult places are where Jesus calls us to be. The borderlands where anything is possible and Christ made miracles arise. When our shoulders tense up, the tops of our mouths ache. For myself I could feel my body shaking and I know that I cannot back down. I know that something needs to be said. So I prepare myself, I prepare my body to speak. I may not say the right thing and it may not come out exactly as I had hoped. But I temper myself and lean on the faith that at these times it is not I speaking but the Holy Spirit using me as a vessel.

Proverbs 3:5–6 (NRSV)
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. 6 In all your ways acknowledge Almighty, and the Almighty will make straight your paths.

As a queer person, straight paths aren’t always my thing. I love to veer into curvy pathways. To lean into the weird and mysterious awe of wondrous things. Give me strange and peculiar. Tell me and show me things that people tend to stray away from and I will curve right into them. Queering the world allows us to accept that which isn’t normalized. Perhaps that is why I often take the road less traveled. Maybe it is why the Holy Spirit leads me into ventures that I never would’ve seen myself in weeks and months prior.

The Creator created me as a one-of-a-kind Being. I hold many identities and yet all at the same time I am always me. God’s magnificent Rachel, set on the precipice of Wholly Holy work. Today may be my first day, but it is certainly not my last.