06/06/2023
When I am dead, they will say my life was LOVE. They will remember my passion for all people being treated justly, w/ love (not tolerance). They’ll remember my eyes lit up around kids and the way young people made me feel alive…the way I wanted to change the world, and I wasn’t afraid to stand alone to blaze a trail so all people could safely grow up to live w/o limits placed on them (especially by religious people who oppress others due to race, sexuality, gender, religion, economic status, etc.). I hope they will say although I built limits for others in my younger years, I shattered them with age, changing the course of generations in my bloodline. I hope they remember I reflected back to others what I sensed God saw in them. Their divinity.
I also hope they remember that I was a woman who held the greatest faith, and nearly lost it because so much of it was built by another…many who used it to hold me down, and I let them, until I didn’t. I wrestled God for a faith that was mine, genuine, true, full of grace, love and mystery.
I hope they remember that it was my children who pushed me, as a mom, into uncharted territory. And I went alone. I went to love and to learn. God brought countless LGBTQ+ people to me. I wanted them to know they were loved by God…but God used them to show the same thing to me. The very ones who had been kicked out by their Christian families, abandoned by churches, left for dead in the street, beaten to bloody pulps by parents in ministry, on and on. Who better to teach me what strong faith is than one who has been persecuted repeatedly? Who better to say, “You were made for more, Allie. There is a tribe of people whose healing is connected to you.” Who better to call me to be ordained in ministry at ? Who better to place a Bible in my hands, knowing it is often used against us, all the while tears streamed down our faces? LGBTQ+ people.
My children will know I fought for my faith and made it with the help of others.
Romans 8:39 says, “No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” ❤️✨
