The Call

I found it in an old box from my parents’ house. Once white, it was now a bit dirty and the pages were bent and worn.

“My Bible!” I exclaimed to no one in particular, clutching it to my chest. I hadn’t seen it in decades.

Opening it, I found my mom’s familiar handwriting on the flyleaf.

Presented to: Claudine Stubbs at General Assembly

From: Mother and Daddy at Miami Beach, Florida

On: June 20, 1972

We were in Florida for our denominations every-four-year convention. Because I had grown out of the Bible I had carried as a child, Mom thought this one would be a more grown-up version for me to start my teen years with. We had purchased it from the book store that was set up at the Assembly.

As I turned the pages, I began to laugh. Covered with Scripture references and artful designs, one page even included a few blank lines to fill in the name of my future husband.

The Family Record page was filled with a detailed list of names of all my immediate family and grandparents. On the Church Record page I had clearly tried to go back and fill out the important faith-moments in my life that had already happened. Only one had an actual date. That date brought tears to my eyes.

Jumping up, I went to find my husband.

Waving the Bible in his face, I interrupted the movie he was watching, “I need you to stop that for a minute, I need to show you this.”

Used to my interruptions, he hit pause and waited patiently for whatever was so important.

“This is my Bible from when I was a girl. But look what it says,” I pointed to the Church Record page. “I clearly tried to write everything down in order, but I only have the date for that one.

The first line read, “Got saved.” The second and third read the same thing, “Got saved.” (If you grew up in a holiness denomination you will appreciate this. I thought every time I messed up I needed to be saved again.) The fourth entry was, “Sanctified.” (Referencing the time I had surrendered my will to whatever God wanted from me.)

It was the fifth line that made me cry. Again, it was just one word, but the date was so important I had remembered to write it down even though we didn’t buy the Bible till four years later. It read, “Called—January 7, 1969.”

“I didn’t remember that I wrote down the date,” I told Larry.

Taking the Bible from me, he looked at the pages. “You were that young when you knew? You really were called weren’t you?” he said.

Even though I had talked about being called our entire marriage, that Bible gave him a different picture of what I had been trying to say for so many years.

“I remember that night.” I was talking loud and fast. “It was at the Britton Church when Bob Radebaugh was the pastor. The young adult choir had traveled there to sing and I was sitting next to mom.” (My dad was the choir sponsor.) “I remember walking down and kneeling at the altar and telling God, ‘whatever it is I’ll do it.’”

“I even remember what I was wearing – a white pleated skirt, a navy shirt and my red go-go boots.” (They were really patent leather knee-hi boots, but I was 8 years old and liked to call them my go-go boots after Nancy Sinatra.)

“I knew God was calling me to something…asking me if I would say yes.” I continued, “I thought it was missions. I thought He was asking me to go to Africa or somewhere.” (That was the only thing most women in ministry that I knew did, so I never considered that He was calling me for anything else.) “I can’t believe that I have the actual date.”

Webster’s Dictionary describes calling as “a strong inner impulse toward a particular course of action especially when accompanied by conviction of divine influence.”

I knew even as an eight-year-old girl that God was leading me into something. I just didn’t realize it would take so many years to find out what that calling was.

By the time I was nearing my High School graduation I knew that the call wasn’t for missions. Therefore, I concluded, it must have only been a passing thing. What else would I do for Him? But on occasion, there was a niggling in my spirit, a sense of dissatisfaction with my direction. I just didn’t know what it meant.

I struggled through six years of college. The first two were as an HPER major, the last four with a double major in Christian Education and Recreation. (My friends all say, “of course YOU would major in recreation.”) I switched because I was feeling that tug in my spirit to do some sort of ministry, I just had no idea what it could be.

I wasn’t a good student. Despite all those high-test scores from years before and the assurance of my teachers that I was capable of more, I couldn’t seem to figure the college thing out (unless you count cheerleading. I did that really well).

My sophomore year was such a struggle that mid-semester I dropped nearly all of my classes because I was going to fail them anyway. By the time the six years was up, I had enrolled in dozens more courses than were required to graduate, but had finished very few of them. My transcript embarrassed me. College had only magnified the insecurity I felt when it came to classwork. I was so scattered that any career, let alone one in ministry, seemed impossible. (I know now that I struggled because of ADHD, but that’s a blog for another day.)

Married to my sweet Larry, he encouraged me to begin a career in sales. “I think you would be good at it,” he told me.

He was right.

Sales was a great confidence builder for me. I learned important things like time management, goal setting and people skills. But always, down deep, there was a longing to do some sort of ministry. I never felt fully at home, even though I loved what I was doing at the time.

I had shared with one pastor the leaning I had towards pastoral care. “I just like to pray with people,” I told him.

“Well I’d be glad to have you help me. I’ll get you started. Let me call you this week.”

He never called back.

Then in my late-twenties, shortly before my son was born, I felt another distinct call on my life. This time I knew God was giving clear direction. He imprinted on my spirit that He wanted me “to speak and to write.” (I laugh at that now. He knew that if He said, “preach” instead of speak I probably would have run away.) I felt a clear calling to pray for people, write, and teach people how to have intimacy with God.

Again, I talked to a pastor friend and inquired if there was something I could do, some program for me to be able to do ministry. “I feel called to be in ministry.”

“Well, we need a children’s choir director. You could do that.”

I did do that, and I directed our teens, worked with the senior adults, taught a Sunday school class and did pretty much everything there was to do in the church except the exact things I felt called to do…pastoral care and discipleship.

Then life happened. Both my husband and I were clinically depressed at the same time. Mine was postpartum; his was triggered from living with autoimmune pain. We were a mess. But again, even in the midst of that, still longing to serve, I called a pastor friend in another city and asked the same question, “Isn’t there something for me to be able to do in ministry other than children and youth? I know that God has called me.”

He was patient and kind and answered all my questions. But somehow, even he never seemed to understand what I was asking.

I chalked it up to the fact that I was too “dingy” to do ministry. They probably saw something in me that wouldn’t work so they just never knew how to tell me.

I was dingy (still am). But there was something amazing that would happen when I talked about my faith. Somehow the words that in casual conversation seemed sporadic and disjointed would flow easily and simply when I was talking about God.

Eight years ago, I was sitting in my friend Lewis’s office (our executive pastor at the church I attend now), working on some ideas for a prayer event we were doing. I began to share with him my calling, this silent longing I had carried my entire life to be in ministry.

He stopped writing on his notepad and looked up at me with a quizzical expression. “You know what you need? You need a local pastor’s license. You need to be a pastor.”

And just like that, he handed me some information, instructed me to read it and “see if it is what you are thinking about. If it is, fill it out and we will get you started.”

I remember leaving his office, papers clutched in my hand, and walking across the parking lot to my son’s red pickup truck. I don’t remember why I was driving it that day, but I remember crawling into the driver’s seat and starting to read. It took only a second for me to start to cry.

Here was the path that I probably should have traveled two decades before, yet no one had thought to tell me about it. I don’t think it was intentional; I was pretty vague in understanding what I was feeling. I think they just didn’t understand it either.

I filled out the papers and took them back to Lewis the next day. A few weeks later, after a vote by our church board, I received my local pastor’s license. A few months and a tough interview later I was granted a district license from our larger governing body. I then was assigned a place of ministry and began the process of ordination (twenty-four classes that must be completed either through the university, seminary, bible college, or modular studies program).

To be ordained means that the elders believe you have sound theology, strong character, and a clear grasp of what it means to serve others in public ministry. It recognizes the call that the minister has on her life and confers affirmation for following that call. It is both a sign (that the call of the candidate is recognized) and a seal (that the call of the candidate is confirmed.)

My denomination has always had female pastors. However, late mid-century, there were many like me who were not given clear direction on how to get there. I heard one of our General Superintendents call it “the dark hole for women in ministry,” a time when we had shifted from our roots. That has been corrected. Today there are hundreds of young women answering the call and as of 2016, one of the courses required for men and women is Foundations for Women’s Ordination.

It’s been a long journey, this calling of mine. What started out so innocently took far longer than I planned to be able to achieve it. I tell people all the time that I have never felt more satisfied about the direction of my life. Even though I qualify for a senior discount, have grey hair and a bum knee, the calling is still strong. (I’m praying to be like Moses and accomplish the most in my senior years.)

My classes are finished. My interviews are done. Tonight, at the age of 56, forty-eight years after I knelt at the altar wearing those red go-go boots, I will be ordained. I’ll kneel before friends and family, and be surrounded by dozens of already ordained ministers, both men and women. There I will receive their ordination blessing.

I plan on carrying that little white Bible.

Some things are worth the wait.