But God Had Other Plans by Rev. Cynthia T. Turner, D.Min.

I nearly dropped the crisp white envelope when I glanced in the upper left corner and read the return address. Written with black ink in old English font were the words: The Orphans Court. Up to that point, I never thought of myself as orphan, but it was true. After losing both parents eight months apart in 2016, suddenly I was an orphan.

For as far back as I can remember, family and church have been inextricably linked. Both have been fraught with complexities that have shaped my life’s plans in unexpected ways. I had plans to be a writer, travel the world, settle down in my mid-30s, have a few babies and live as happily ever after as I could. But God had other plans.

My father was a Baptist preacher, who pastored country churches all his life, even after we moved to the city. Hot, no-air-conditioned country churches with pot-belly wood stoves for heat. And plank-wood floors that made that good foot-patting sound that carried the beat of the songs. Growing up as a PK – a preacher’s kid — came with certain tensions. As a kid, I loved going to church, because it was the only place I knew where grownups and children came together to sing. I couldn’t wait until I learned my first hymn by heart. “At the Cross, at the cross, where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith, I received my sight, and now I am happy all the day.” But when the song was over, I hated being told to sit still and stop wiggling. My little body contained too much energy not to shift and wiggle and move.

I remember visiting churches in afternoon or evening services where my father, as guest preacher, would take care to acknowledge “his lovely wife.” Protocol would dictate that she would then stand and wave at the admiring congregation. Most of the times she would honor the cue. Other times, if she was really mad because of the argument they just had on the way to church, she might choose to keep her seat and only wave as her way of signaling to my father she refused to pretend things were lovely when they were not.

Church was the first place I posed that prophetic question: How long, O Lord? How long? And add to that the question I asked my mother: Does he have to be so loud? For as much as I loved the intensity of the preaching, I do recall it interrupting my sleep. I appreciated that part of church where folks extra-doted on the pastor’s kids and talked about how cute we were in third person, as if we were not present, while grabbing our cheeks or patting our head. I hated the part where I discerned that those same good church sisters that drew in so close were more interested in being near and dear to the pastor than they were anything else.

Despite their complexities, those early experiences shaped in me a love for the Spiritual side of life, for the support of community, and for expanded table fellowship and sharing. They also showed me that not everyone at the table was there for the fried chicken and potato salad. But the fact that they showed up still stood for something. I learned early to see that there is another side of things — to see beyond what’s visible and present. Most of all, church taught me to trust God and instilled in me the abiding presence of God. Never can I recall not believing God was not watching over me.

Fast forward a half century or so and that girl – whose plans did not include pastoring — is now pastoring a small suburban church. That girl who had not seen a woman preacher (much less a woman pastor) until she was in her late teens, ended up accepting the call to pastor. That girl, in her mid-20s, would marry a thriving pastor of an established church, before accepting her own call to preach. Then she would embark on a mission to plant a church with him, find herself divorced after 15 years, and subsequently be called to pastor that church.

From PK, to first lady, to married preacher, to executive pastor, to divorced preacher, to single pastor, and full circle to married pastor (whose husband is executive pastor of a thriving ministry), this is not the story I would have mapped out for my life. But it is the story that has molded me for God’s plans.

I am often asked what it is like to be a woman pastor. I respond that I don’t believe God calls “women pastors” any more than God calls “men pastors.” God simply calls pastors. To that great and awe-filled calling, we are challenged to bring our whole selves. Not just our prettied-up parts, but also our scars, our pasts, our pains – mountain highs and valley lows. Blessed are we to find that the best Good News may just come from the worst of experiences. Underneath it all, there’s something redeemable. God spares no part of the journey. Blessed is she who discovers on the journey there are no orphans in God’s holy family.

Rev. Cynthia T. Turner, D.Min., serves as pastor of the 22-year-old Dayspring Community Church in Lanham, MD.  An ordained Baptist minister, she previously served in both the Clinton and Bush administrations as Deputy Director of Public Affairs and Speechwriter to Assistant Secretary for Health and US Surgeon General David Satcher. She brings to ministry more than 25 years’ experience in publishing, health communications, and public health. She worked at Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation in Washington, DC, where she promoted contemplative living. She has been a missionary through the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention’s Pastoral Excellence Program and a mentor to other pastors through a Lilly Endowment funded program. She serves on the Mary Elizabeth House (Washington, DC) board, an organization that houses and supports young mothers transitioning out of the foster care system.