Dear FBC Family:
She arrived three days after Valentine’s Day in 1995. Lucy was a quiet baby who always looked like she was sizing up the room. Even as a toddler, she had a will of her own. Her first complete sentence? “Okay, here’s the deal.” An early shot across the bow that this kid was going her own way.
As we enter this wedding week and a family celebration with Lucy and her beloved Meghan, I’m feeling all the “mom feels.” The joy. The regrets. The heart-swelling pride and gratitude at who she’s become.
Lucy came out to me over the phone on a Tuesday in October at the age of 25. She was coaching volleyball in Tennessee, I was on the Metro heading home from Dupont Circle. She chit-chatted with me all the way to my Brookland stop.
“Are you off the train yet?” she asked.
I was.
“So I’m dating a girl,” Lucy said. “Any questions?”
”Is she good people?” I asked.
“The best,” Lucy said.
“Babe, I’m thrilled.”
That was it. This Saturday, our girl will be waiting at the altar as Meghan walks down the aisle with her father.
On the heels of Pride Sunday I'm thinking of the many LGBTQIA+ people — and their parents and families, where the stakes of acceptance or rejection run so deep. I wish I could say my heart has always been wide-open to the queer community. It’s been a journey. My path included engaging the Bible through lenses wider than my own, reading books that cracked something loose, and most of all, sitting across tables with gay and lesbian church members in every congregation I've served.
The biggest shift happened not in my head but in my heart. I came to the point where I didn’t need more empirical information. The faces and stories and lives in my orbit were all the evidence I needed that the presence of God the Beloved dwells in every person.
Most of you haven’t had much of a chance to know Lucy. We moved to Washington ten years ago, and by then she was already off at college, building her own life. You’ve caught her at Christmas, at the occasional Sunday, passing through.
So before I go, I want to introduce you to Lucy and Meghan—the best way I know how—through their wedding registry. They aren’t asking for china. They’re asking guests to give, in their name, to organizations serving causes and communities they love:
The Trust Center, an LGBTQ+ collective in Colorado Springs built around the trans community, run by two of their first friends there. Camp Braveheart, a no-cost summer camp for children with congenital heart defects, where Meghan spent summers as a child and keeps returning as a volunteer. The San Juan Mountains Association, which protects and restores the wild lands of southwest Colorado. Hope CommUnity Center, serving immigrant and farmworker families in central Florida. And the Women’s Sports Foundation, because of course.
They’ve also set up a small honeymoon fund for anyone who’d like to help send them to Greece next year.
They are, as it turns out, exactly who Tim and I hoped our daughter would become…and more than we knew to hope for.
With a full heart,
