The tattoo on my arm is still new enough that it looks a little like a snake preparing to shed its skin. The Hebrew letters are still raised, scabbed layers of flesh. I find myself running my finger over these letters absentmindedly, reminding myself what the words mean and what they mean to me.

“So she named the LORD who spoke to her, ”El-roi” (You are a God who sees me)…”
Genesis 16:13

…

The shuttle driver’s incessant, but pleasant, chatter as he drove me through the stone gates and up Chapel Dr. of Duke University interrupted my spiritual experience of seeing campus for the first time. It was raining and cloudy, which somehow made the imposing tower of the chapel even more imposing as it loomed in front of me. Campus was a flurry of activity and motion, everyone else apparently oblivious to the emotions swirling around inside of me. I felt out of place but immediately at home simultaneously, as if all the roads I had walked before led right here.

My therapist recommended that I sit inside of Duke Chapel for a moment, allowing myself to be swallowed up by its enormity and grandeur and to revel in this moment where the God of the Universe fulfilled a promise to me years before.

God made a promise to me that I was made in their image, reflecting their goodness, loved deeply without question or cause, and that God was big enough and good enough to celebrate and delight in me — even if people didn’t. God made a promise to me that they called me to serve their church and that my gifts, interests, and abilities were on purpose and were never meant to be defined or suffocated by anyone, for any reason.

Years passed since God made that promise to me. They were terrible years, fraught with pain and the abuse of authority and power. I doubted myself, desperately trying to reconcile what I knew God calling me to do with the authority of the denomination I was in. People I thought cared for and about me looked me straight in the eye, and without a hint of hesitation or real love, declared that God had told them that I was not called to the ministry, which was odd since no one else was there when I conversed with God on the matter.

Everywhere I turned I found other people doing their best to keep me away from or out of spaces they deemed me unworthy to occupy. Cruelty masqueraded as love. Control wore a mask of discipleship. Hatred hid (barely) behind fear. Trust was demanded, but rarely earned and always broken. They bled me dry and were surprised when I found the courage to walk away. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says that he came to give life in the fullest. My life had been twisted and wrung out until it became a desolate wasteland. When I could take no more, I walked away. I wanted no part of God if God looked anything like the church.

That was 7 years ago. 7 years ago I sat on the ground of a Dallas parking garage, back against my car, and sobbed into the night. I was alone, in every sense of the word. I began to claw my way, slowly and painfully, to the person God created me to be. I’m learning that I am trustworthy, and good, and loved and capable of loving, despite years of hearing the contrary.

When I walked into Duke Divinity School for the first time, a woman said ”You are here because you are called to serve the Triune God and we are ready, with palms open, to receive you and your gifts”. I didn’t have to justify my presence there. I didn’t have to do anything but show up. I was celebrated just because.

The days that followed were a blur, crammed full of various meetings, lectures, seminars, and a particularly impactful worship service. Women led the music. A woman preached the homily, which was about women in the Bible, and in which she recalled my name for God that I have claimed and clung to. (El-roi)A woman presided over communion and a woman looked into my eyes and said, ”Emilee, the body of Christ broken for you and the blood of Christ shed for you”.

Later, in my hotel room, I lay on the bed desperately trying to make some sense of what I was feeling and what I had experienced. I had never in my life felt more seen than I did in the hallowed halls of the Divinity School. That morning my therapist video called and sat back as words poured out of my mouth in no real order. I marveled at how I felt at home from the moment my feet touched the ground and how being there felt like coming home to a hug from your favorite person. She asked how we could remember this moment. How could we raise an ebenezer to remember this fulfilling of promises, decades in the making, when doubt inevitably creeps back in.

The next day I called a tattoo artist with my Hebrew words ready to be imprinted onto my body for all time. I placed the tattoo on my left forearm so I can see ”El-roi” every time I look at my arm. My God is a God who sees me. A God who sees me and loves what they see, who delights in every part of who I am, and who keeps their promises. This God has bombarded my life with people who see me and love what they see, and who delight in me.

Full disclosure, I am scared out of my mind to go to Duke. But then I look at my arm and I remember that feeling of homecoming, of celebration, and of being seen just as I am.