Queering My Faith - Wonderful Whitworth

Yes. I did wear that in public.

First, I know I cut the last post short but I had a panic moment when I tried to keep going.  My transition into college was a little atypical and I needed more time to figure out how to write about it. If you haven't read Part 1 I encourage you to do so.  I am not going to repeat the disclaimer, so if you don't remember it, please go back and read it.  

My senior year was, by far, my favorite year.  I felt connected to friends at school and church.  I was a leader on the track team, I was a leader in my youth group, and I knew that I was heading to Whitworth College in the fall.  Life was good.  There was always an underlying fear of rejection, if I let folks really see me or my difference, but I had finally gotten to a point where I fit into my group of friends. I was comfortable.  

Right after graduation I went camping with a couple of friends, went to visit my grandparents, packed up the car and moved to Montana.  I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay in Spokane, but my family was moving and I didn’t have a job or a place to stay so I went along.  My dad had already moved to Montana at the beginning of my senior year and the rest of the family stayed in Spokane so my mom could graduate from EWU and I could graduate from high school.  It was hard leaving the house I grew up in, but I was very glad to be together as a family again.  We spent the summer hiking in the Beartooth Mountains and exploring Eastern Montana on our Hendrickson Family Fun Days.  It was a fantastic summer and I cherish the memories.   

On the Saturday before I was to leave for school, my dad took me fly fishing.  It was a beautiful August day on the Stillwater River.  We didn't catch a thing, but I found out I was a natural fly fisherman.  I can still feel the water rushing around my calves, the colors of the day, and the way my dad stood so tall and strong in the current.  It is one of my best and happiest memories with my dad.  I was leaving for Whitworth in less than a week and loved having that morning with him.  Three days later, my world came crashing down and I was forever changed.  As clearly as I remember that morning of fishing, I remember the moment I found out that my dad had died. Everything stopped, there was no sound, there was no breath, there was no thought, everything stopped.  I spent the next week in a haze.  I remember very little.  The days and nights all melted into one long unending day.  I remember making a phone call to a friend.  I remember food, lots and lots of food and not wanting to eat any of it. I remember riding my bike so fast, wanting to fly so far away, wanting to go back in time and change what happened. And I remember having the first crisis of my faith.  I was 18, I didn't understand loss of this magnitude and I sure didn't understand how my God could let this happen. 


At some point during that week I packed for school. I am not really sure how, but I did.  There was a service in Montana then we all filled the cars and drove to Spokane for a service at Shadle.  I was home and everything was changed.  Family and friends surrounded me, held me up, and were my source of strength. We laughed together, we cried together, and we most importantly we were together.  After the services were over and family all started to head home, my mom dropped me off at school, got me settled into my dorm room and headed back to Montana. After being surrounded by people for a week I was suddenly alone.  Orientation was already over, all of the other freshman had gone through Initiation together and bonded.  And there I was, a sad, broken girl, not sure which way was up.   Thankfully I was in the same dorm as one of my friends from Shadle Park Pres, she was a couple of years ahead of me at Whitworth and was an absolute lifesaver.  She was (and still is) a people magnet and pretty much knew everyone in the dorm, so I stuck with her and soon I had a small group of friends. I knew early on I had a decision to make.  I could either try and hide or I could engage.  I chose to engage and open myself up to people.  It was an incredibly liberating feeling.  I had found a second home, I was surrounded by Christians (and one pagan, there's at least one in every crowd), my faith was blossoming, I had found a niche.  


I started school as a Biology Major. I wanted to teach.  But then I crashed up against Organic Chemistry and Calculus and well, let's just say they didn't go over very well.  I actually dropped O-Chem the day of our first big test, I had already decided that I was changing my major and Chemistry was no longer a required course.  I had felt the call of God, I was being lead in the direction of ministry. I promptly changed my major to Religion and set a new course for my life.  I would earn my degree, find a job in youth ministry until I was too "old" to be a youth pastor, then I would go to seminary and be a "real" pastor.  I was set, or so I thought.  


Sometime during my freshman year I started to realize that maybe I wasn't straight.  There was no way that I would admit that I had "those" feelings, but my difference was starting to take shape in front of me.  And having just changed my degree to Religion, I was even more careful about disclosing that part of myself.  I was still grieving and trying to process my dad's death, so I buried any feelings I had for women.  After all, good Christians are not gay, they do not have those attractions, so I fell back on what I knew - bury and deny.  That would come back to bite me later, but there is really only so much a mind and spirit can take at one time.  


I was bribed into counseling with chili cheese fries and a milkshake. I will admit was probably the best place for me, but given that I had grown up taking barbs and blows, I had become pretty adept at hiding what I was feeling and only letting out what was safe. So I would do my time in the counseling office and then I would take long walks in the Back 40.  It was my way of trying to process, I needed to be alone.  I would find a place to sit, watch the sunset and cry, or I would pray wondering why, wanting so badly for things to be different.  I worked my way in and out of the stages of grief in the Back 40, but when anger hit, I had no idea how to handle it.  It would come over me in waves and I had no outlet.  I had never felt anything like it and I certainly had no clue how to process it.  One day while out on a walk, in the midst of wave of anger, I hauled off and hit a tree.  Full force punched it and all of a sudden the anger lifted, my hand hurt like hell, but the anger was gone. I quickly realized the power in that action, but also instinctively knew that it would not be well received by my peers or my counselor, so I hid it.  Pain became an outlet for me when I could express how I was feeling or things were just too intense.  It became a pattern that took years and incredible amounts of strength and determination to break.  Today I can look at the scars on my arm and not feel shame, they are a part of who I am, but they do not define me.  If you are a cutter, know that I understand, know that I will always listen, know that it does not define you and there other ways of walking through what you are feeling.  And most importantly, know that you are a beautiful, strong, amazing person, who happens to be going through a really shitty time and that it will pass.  I promise.  




I had never been popular in high school, I had my group of friends, but I could walk the halls and remain unseen. At Whitworth, my world was the complete opposite, I couldn't walk across campus without someone calling out to me from across the Loop.  Everywhere I went, in every dorm, in every class, I had friends, wonderful amazing incredible friends.  Many of those friendships are still near and dear to my heart.  They helped hold me together and helped to pick up the pieces when I fell apart. I was learning what it was like to trust people and to truly live in community.  They helped to pull me out of my shell and helped me to see how incredible I was.  


My faith really shaped almost everything I did at Whitworth.  From my classes, to the friends I hung out with, to the way I viewed my world.  I was being trained up in conservative, evangelical, Christianity.  I learned how to disciple new believers, how to evangelize to the unbelievers, how to preach, and how to teach.  I read the Bible daily, for classes and in my personal devotions. I studied Christian history, doctrine and ethics.  And never once did I question any of it.  I absorbed it like a sponge.  There was no thinking for myself, it was always thinking about the whole.  Trying to sacrifice myself in order to uplift and uphold the Gospel.  I was really good at self sacrifice, I was really good at thinking about others before myself.  It was the perfect place for me.  


My junior year I moved out of the dorm and into an apartment with a couple of friends.  This move meant that I needed to find a job to pay for rent.  I looked around and was offered a job at Target.  Little did I know how this job would shape my future.  At first, it was just a job.  I put on the red and khaki and organized shelves and folded towels, went home did homework and went to class.  I slowly started making friends at Target.  They were very different from my friends at Whitworth, some where quite liberal in their thinking and it was very, very new to me.  I had never really been exposed to that way of thinking and it intrigued me.  


My senior year I moved into my mom's house to save money. She lived about 15 minutes from Whitworth, so it wasn't far, but just far enough that I would drive to campus in the morning, then go to work and get home late in the evening.  I was still working at Target and had made some pretty good friends.  One of these new friends, I'll call her Abby, happened to be a lesbian.  She was the first person that I knew who was out and my world shook a little when I found out.  When she told me that her dad was a pastor and she was a Christian my world almost flew out of orbit.  That thought had never, EVER, ever occurred to me and I had no concept of how it could be true.  As I got to know her and started hanging out with my Target friends, old feelings started to grow inside of me. I started looking around at my friends at Whitworth, most of them had significant boyfriends or were engaged.  I had never found the right man, so I figured I would be celibate and serve God all my life.  


After after meeting Abby I was never the same.  We talked for hours, we laughed and we joked, I came out.  When I did she just looked at me and said "well duh, we all have been waiting for you to figure it out." This was the point of another crisis in my faith.  What in the world was I going to do, I was graduating in the spring with a degree in Religion, I was a good conservative Christian, there was no way that I could be gay too.  So my senior year I lived a double life.  I went to class, worked as a youth intern at a local church, and partied hard every weekend with my friends from Target.  I was introduced to a world that I never knew existed. I went to drag shows, drank, and danced until the early hours of the morning.  I would wake up a couple hours later and go teach Sunday school like nothing had happened the night before.  It was a mess. 


I started slowly coming out to my closest friends at school.  Some friends heard it, shrugged it off, and said this is who you are, it's fine.  These were not the majority, most had some sort of variation on, you know what the Bible says right, or that's not God's best for you, as their response.  I listened to them and my heart agreed with most of what they were saying.  I was being torn in two, one side of me felt free and happy when I was out at the shows, but one side of me was conflicted and broken when I thought about having to leave my Christian life behind.  In my mind there was no way to be both, I had to choose. 


The voices of my pastors, my professors, and friends won out in the end.  Midway through my senior year I found out about an incredible internship.  It was working for a church in Egypt.  It was my perfect escape.  I applied and waited.  Just before spring break I received an email, they wanted to interview me.  Late one night I waited for a phone call.  As I spoke with the caller, it became clear to me that I was most likely going to be offered one of the internships. At the end of the call it was confirmed, I was going to Egypt.  I had my out.  I was so excited on so many levels.  I had found a job far, far away from Spokane and temptation, I was going to Egypt, and I was going to be working for a church.  I felt like the calling to ministry that I had experienced my freshman year had been confirmed.  I was on the right path, I was going to serve God in a foreign land, and it was going to save me from my unnatural desires. In August of that year, I boarded a plane in Seattle, flew across the world, stepped into heat like I had never known and into a new chapter of my life.