By Emmy Trivette, News Editor

Every night in her room, she cried and cried for hours. Her emotional pleas included asking God to “take these feelings away, please, I don’t want them.” Finally, Robyn Lynn Godley stopped crying one night.

“I looked in the mirror and then looked up and said, ‘God, I’m gay.’ ”

That was the moment, after months of denial and confusion, in which Godley was finally able to embrace her sexuality amidst her unwavering and unquestioning faith in God.

“That was even before I had admitted it to myself, and I distinctly remember Him telling me, ‘You’re loved, nothing will change that,’ and I know that’s crazy for someone who’s not religious to believe, but sometimes it happens,” Godley said.

Two years before she discovered her identity, Godley was coming to terms with another realization – a calling to ministry in the United Methodist Church.

“I started feeling the calling in eighth grade, but I kept denying it,” Godley said. “I thought, ‘God, that’s not what you have planned for me,’ yet every Sunday I saw the pastors and the preaching and I said, ‘That’s a career that would bring me joy, that’s who I’m going to be,’ so I stopped denying it.”

With those two defining moments behind her, Godley is fully embracing her sexuality while interning at Kitty Hawk United Methodist Church this semester. She does everything from helping with youth activities to assisting with worship services to giving the Sunday morning sermon earlier this month.

The senior is not just actively involved in the church locally, but plans to attend Campbell University to major in Christian Studies. She then plans to apply to Duke Divinity School and earn her masters in theology.

With her life course seemingly charted, Godley saw these plans potentially upended by the UMC General Conference. On Feb. 26, a plan was voted on in St. Louis at a special session of the church leadership – a proposition called the Traditional Plan, which defines homosexual practice as incompatible with Christian scripture and tradition. This plan also bars LGBTQ+ people from ordination and forbids gay marriages performed in UMC churches or by UMC pastors.

Pastors who defy these orders are in danger of being defrocked – dismissed from ministry.

“If I denounce myself and say that I’m straight, then I can be forgiven and ordained, but I couldn’t ever identify myself as gay if I wanted to be a pastor now,” Godley explained.

The decision was shocking for Godley, especially knowing there was widespread support of the “One Church” plan, which would have allowed each Methodist church to decide how it would deal with gay marriage and gay clergy. Now, Godley is thinking about a backup plan for her own future.

“In four years, once I finish my college degree, if the UMC is non-accepting I will probably go to Divinity school as an Episcopalian,” she said.

As she watched the live stream of the conference during a recent church retreat, Godley heard several Methodist pastors speak about homosexuality in traditional terms.

“It was very hard for me to hear that, but I know I need to – I need to understand where other people are coming from, because just like they can’t blame me for being gay, I can’t blame them for their beliefs, and it’s how they were raised,” Godley said. “And honestly, if I hadn’t discovered this myself, I would probably be a little homophobic.”

The UMC General Conference included church representatives stretching from America all the way to Africa and Asia. The total vote in favor of the Traditional Plan was 53 percent to 47 percent, but many American Methodists said influence from churches in regions such as Africa, where homosexuality can be punishable by death, is why the vote came out the way it did.

“The world is our parish,” Kitty Hawk UMC associate pastor Betsy Haas said. “The UMC has traveled across the world, and we were very successful in areas like Korea and almost all of Africa.”

According to figures from the United Methodist Church, the denomination includes more than 12 million members, only about half of whom are American. Haas, who has worked closely with Godley for the past two years at Kitty Hawk, explained that approximately 70 percent of American representatives at the conference voted to be more inclusive rather than for the Traditional plan.

Haas predicts that because of this vote and other factors, the American Methodist branch may split off from the global branch if the vote doesn’t swing after the next UMC session in four years. And one way or another, Godley can still be a pastor, whether it’s with the Methodist church or a different denomination.

“I do not think her sexual orientation will prevent her from reaching her goals,” said Duck United Methodist pastor John Tyson, the author of “Homosexuality: A Conversion. “She will be able to be ordained.”

For almost 30 years, Tyson researched, studied and developed his view on homosexuality in science and religion. His book fuses scripture and science to explain “how a Methodist pastor outgrew the idea that homosexuality is a sin.”

For Tyson, it started with an examination on slavery and its relationship with church history and theology, questioning why it took the church 1700 years to agree that slavery was wrong, even though both scripture and tradition supported slavery.

“Because of the verse ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ the supreme ethic of love took precedence over slavery, and I realized this was similar with homosexuality,” Tyson said.

Referencing research biologist Dr. Gregory Prince, Tyson further explained his view that homosexuality is not a choice, like many believe, but is determined “epigenetically” – in other words, people were born this way.

For Godley, when she came out to God, to herself, to her family and to her community, she wasn’t making a decision. For her, it was just what was meant to be. She chooses now to welcome both her sexual identity and her calling to ministry as parts of a whole that make her a unique Christian.

“It only takes a story to change someone,” Godley said.

Haas is holding out hope that Godley’s story is one that many, many people will get to hear for years to come.

“She is going to be an excellent pastor. It’ll be a shame for us if we don’t get her,” Haas said with a smile. “God is the one doing the calling: The church does not call you, the people do not call you. The Methodist church may miss out on having a fantastic pastor like Robyn Godley.”

Junior Emmy Trivette can be reached at trivetteem0626@daretolearn.org.