As a child, I was sure that I had some degree of magical powers. There was no way that if I didn’t try extra hard, I wouldn’t be able to fly off the couch. I stood on the cushions over and over, flapped my arms over and over, landed on the ground and got back up and tried to launch myself into the air again.
Hm. Didn’t work. Perhaps I was a Care Bear. I ran around the kitchen and attempted to burst rainbows out of my stomach. When that didn’t happen, when not even clouds came forth from my tired little abs, I thought I’M ON THE WRONG PATH. I’M PROBABLY RELATED TO SOMEONE SPECIAL.
Ah yes, I forgot! I was the great granddaughter of Dracula. I asked my mother to buy me a black dress with an over-sized collar for Halloween. I got the black dress, no collar—"I don’t even know how to find that,” she said—and I put it on and sat in front of the television and tried to channel my young inner vampire.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t make myself want to actually drink human blood.
Alas, I was at a loss leading into my teenaged years. I dug far into my own mind and tried to figure out what was special about me. I could sing! I liked to sing. I got cast in all the school plays. I liked to write, even penned a 200-page novel about a kangaroo who could shoot lasers out of his paws. I went to college and wondered Will anyone see that I’m special? Will anyone be able to tell me who I am, why I’m here, what I’m supposed to do on this planet?
And then, I found evangelical Christianity, and it was as if all the answers I sought had been with them all along.
First of all, I was BORN SPECIAL, they said. I was a daughter of the almighty, omnipotent King of Heaven and earth. My lineage was royal, the blood of my spirit sacred, and God had a purpose for my life that was far better than what I could want for myself. The future wasn’t bleak, like I existentially feared it was! It was bursting with hope and wonder and a richness of life I couldn’t predict, much less imagine.
But on top of it all, I had an amazing gift—one that revealed itself in the Bible’s greatest stories. It involved a supernatural communion with God, the closest thing to magic the evangelical movement would admit to.
It was first identified by my friend, Leslie. I stood behind her at church one day and had an overwhelming feeling of love towards her during the sermon. I focused on her left shoulder—was there something sitting there? She breathed and I saw it lift, a weight in my imagination that went floating into the air.
I told her after the service about this weird thing I saw in my head. She said that she had been experiencing pain in that shoulder, and it was alleviated during the sermon. Whoah, that’s strange I thought, and she said “I think you have a prophetic gift.” The child I had been swelled within me. HOLY SHIT I WAS MAGICAL AFTER ALL.
We marched over to our pastor. CAN WE PLEASE GET THIS VALIDATED? He told us that we needed to start out by praying, which we did. He then asked me if I ever had other experiences like this. “A comforting voice writes through my hand in my journals sometimes,” I said. “I’ve always wondered if that’s God.”
He asked me if it ever wrote things that could be “refuted by the Bible.” I didn’t think so, I told him. It was usually stuff about how I was loved, and would get through whatever sadness I was feeling at the time.
“You do have a prophetic gift,” he said. “It just needs to be nurtured.”
I cannot even begin to tell you how goddamn validating this felt. I felt special, powerful, created for meaning beyond the reach of Dracula’s daughter. After searching all my life for purpose, I thought I had found it in this movement, with this God who loved me and created me to do his will on earth.
But for whatever agency I was given, whatever power that was real or imaginary, far more was taken—and over time, I realized that. I traded my ability to lead for this purpose, being told that, as a woman, I could never be a pastor. I traded self-expression for this purpose, not being able to write a story or paint a picture unless it was centered on God, unless it had the ultimate goal of leading people to him. I traded the ability to make decisions for myself, to try out for a play or continue my education or move back in with my parents if I wanted.
It wasn’t my choice, it was God’s. Everything had to be vetted through the Bible, and the ultimate authority on the Bible was the churches I went to, the entire evangelical movement.
I had no power, not really. I was just told I was to keep me busy.
As I went to graduate school and evangelized to my friends, I began to see that there was purpose and power in being normal—that the most formidable thing you could be, in some ways, was just like everyone else. Being special was depressing me, depleting me of human experience. I had been missing out on so many normal things, like decisions and dates and sex, drunken nights and mistakes and the ability to learn.
I wanted to stop predicting and start living, stop journaling the comforts of God and admit that I could comfort myself.
I wanted to be messy. I wanted to see what it was like to fall. I dipped my toes in the water, and the feeling was clear. I could wade in as far as I wanted.
If you’re reading this, I hope today that you can celebrate the beauty of being normal, of being a schlub like the rest of us—indistinguishable from the crowd. I hope you can find peace in walking down the narrow streets of a city, completely obscured by buildings, no pressure to be seen for the purpose of saving others. I hope you can feel the joy of being in the nosebleed seats of life, of coming and going as you please—as you please, the key words.
I hope that your life is on your terms.