For years, my classmates took great pleasure in reminding me that I was “just the pastor’s daughter,” treating my background as though it were the punchline to a joke. I spent a long time simply ignoring their taunts, but when they attempted to mock me one final time on graduation day, I abandoned my prepared speech and finally delivered the words I should have spoken years earlier.
As a baby, I had been abandoned on the front steps of the church, swaddled in a yellow blanket that had one loose corner blowing in the wind. My dad, Josh, always shared this chapter of my life with profound gentleness, ensuring it never felt like a wound.
“You were placed where love would find you first,” he’d say, and through his actions, he made that statement feel entirely true every single day that followed.
Dad served as the pastor of that small church back then, just as he does today. Long before any official paperwork was finalized, he had already become my father in every way that truly mattered. He was the one who diligently packed my lunches and signed my report cards. He even took the time to learn how to part my hair perfectly down the middle, and he proudly sat in uncomfortable folding chairs during every choir concert, watching me as though I were the main attraction at a major event.
By the time I reached eighth grade, my peers had already invented a collection of nicknames for me: “Miss Perfect,” “Goody Claire,” and “The church girl”.
They would routinely question whether I ever actually had any fun, or if my only form of entertainment was simply going home. In response, I would just smile, offer a shrug, and keep walking—exactly as my dad had taught me to do.
“People talk from what they’ve known,” he always said. “You answer from what you’ve been given”.
