One Woman’s Midlife Call

The year was 1978, and all three of my children were in school for the whole day for the first time. So when I saw a blurb for a conference co-sponsored by Fuller Seminary in our hometown—a conference on women in ministry—I decided I wanted to go.

The whole topic was new to me. Growing up, I had never seen a woman pastor, never heard a woman preach. I’d heard women speak—Henrietta Mears, Corrie Ten Boom—but preach? Nope.

To tell you the truth, it had never entered my consciousness as an adolescent or young adult that women might be both capable of and gifted by God to lead in worship. But now, in my early thirties, I began to sense that the Spirit was doing something new and quite wonderful in the church. And I wanted to know more about it, to hear the scriptural warrant for it, and to witness for myself female human persons expounding on the word of God. Attending that conference was a glorious experience, eye-opening and heart-pounding.

We had been members of Pasadena Covenant Church for three years by then and had begun to hear about the ordination of women within the Covenant. During the years following that watershed conference, our associate pastor would occasionally drop by my home for a front-porch visit. Invariably, he would ask me, “Say, Diana, have you ever thought about going down the hill to Fuller Seminary? I think you might really enjoy it.”

I was actively leading a couples’ Bible study and a women’s semi-monthly gathering, singing in the choir, and helping to plan worship services, all of which I loved and was affirmed in doing. But going to seminary? Nah. I was nearing forty by this time—way too old for school, right?

Wrong.

For some reason, God doesn’t seem to view the aging process the same way we do. And in the waning months of 1988, I filled out the application and, with three friends to encourage me, walked into the Admissions Office. At the tender age of forty-four, I began my seminary life.