I was ordained in June of 2009. In the UMC, you are up for ordination after a three year probationary period of being in ministry. So even though I was ordained (this photo is that moment) in 2009, I had been commissioned and appointed in 2006. I was working as the Associate Pastor at Corvallis United Methodist Church at the time.

This moment has been an amazing ingrained memory in my mind. I remember so much about this particular moment. At this particular time, my Bishop is telling me to look up because this was happening. In this moment, in an auditorium I have just heard the sound of seats going up because people who knew and supported me were standing up to show their support. In this moment the hands of my parents and mentors are on me as the Bishop is about to ordain and anoint me to serve. I love the looks on each face. My parents look so proud and one mentor is watching them as others watch me. It is a moment of joy and love and professing and affirming my call.

I also remember a few other points of this moment….in this moment, my partner at the time was not standing in this pod of people because we didn’t know that it was safe for her to appear by my side. We had been dating a couple of years in this moment and we had decided that it just wasn’t ok for her to be in that moment. She is out in the seats standing to support me. In this moment, I have been struggling with my call being in line with the reality of my sexuality. At this point, I had been struggling with what to do for a couple of years because a few years earlier I had fallen in love with a woman and had come out to myself. And I knew that according to the United Methodist Church Book of Discipline I wasn’t supposed to get ordained.

I hadn’t come out to almost anyone just yet. I barely had come out to myself. In seminary, I knew that I was about to come out I think. I started exploring and thinking that I was clearly at least bisexual. I was an ally, I told myself. But when I met someone who was willing to walk alongside me in the journey, I realized that I couldn’t lie to myself any longer. I was a lesbian. This was the only life that made sense to my own person. This is who I was but that didn’t make the call I had to ministry very easy. If I continued in ordination, I would have to choose a path…don’t ask don’t tell perhaps. That worked for a couple of years until it no longer felt honest to my people and to my partner. But then I was reported to my Bishop who made a list of rules for me.

That worked for a little bit until I met someone who I wanted to marry…publicly. I needed to live my life as myself publicly. Plus I slowly realized that to be fully out meant others felt safer to be more out as well. I needed to be out. But this meant that every day for the past 18 years I have wondered if it would be a day that my ordination would get taken away. Would this be the day?

In 2016, there was a call for those clergy who were willing to come out publicly to do so on a worldwide stage. I think I was in the first five to respond that I would be willing to stand up publicly to come out at General Conference. I had my Bishop at the time’s backing and promise that he would keep me as safe as he could in my ordination if I did this. I added my name. It went out on a public list, it was added to the protest and the t shirts. I stood next to my colleagues publicly and laid myself bare to my sexuality, a vulnerable place to be. I came out on a totally different stage than my day to day coming out. I risked my call. I risked my own heart.

And still the Church said that I was incompatible. Still the Church denied that I was ok to serve. Still the Church shut down what could have been a glorious joyful time. Instead it became traumatic and heartbreaking.

I went to Germany where the Bishop there said that he followed rules and although he liked me, he couldn’t employ me.

I came home to a supportive appointment but less invested in the worldwide Church. I needed to be me.

And then yesterday I woke up to hear that the language of incompatibility was eliminated. No longer do I have to worry about being a “self avowed practicing homosexual” and how that might affect my call to ministry. Yesterday I read about how finally, by 93 percent, the United Methodist Church voted away this traumatic and hurtful language.

And I cannot tell you how hard I wept at the relief. I cannot tell you at how flabbergasted I am that it actually finally happened. I didn’t dare let my little heart hope. Finally, I feel as though after 18 years of serving, I can breathe in a different way. I never questioned that God had called me to this work, I just never really felt safe about the people involved along the way. Finally. And I know more reflection and feelings will come but finally. Finally. Finally.