Marcia Owens McRae, center, was ordained to the Sacred Order of Priests April 16 at Christ Episcopal Church in Valdosta by the Right Rev. Scott A. Benhase, left, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. At right is the Rev. Deacon Nancy Sartin of Christ Church and at far left next to Bishop Benhase is the Rev. Deacon Scott Mithen of St. John's, Bainbridge.

“God is the God of surprises,” so says the newly ordained Rev. Marcia Owens McRae of Bainbridge. After all, it was her husband, John, who was considering the Episcopal priesthood — not she — when God revealed His plan to her so many years ago.

But the former Valdostan ran … for more than 30 years.

Drama has always been a part of Marcia’s life — As a child, she participated in children’s theatre in Fairhope, Ala., performing three roles in a single play, Captain Hook, Peter Pan and Smee in “Peter Pan.” At Valdosta State College, she not only won Best Stage Technician her freshman year, but also an acting award later. At Valdosta and Lowndes high schools, she would teach drama, among other courses — so God chose a dramatic way to reveal His plan for her life.

It was in 1976 or 1977 and she and John had been praying individually for discernment for him about the call to the Episcopal priesthood since he was having some doubts about it. One night she was awakened by “a strong wind” … one that seemed to have no beginning or end.

“I got up to make sure things weren’t blowing around out on the patio,” she said. “It was a constant wind … it didn’t start and then subside. I thought we were going to have a tornado. I tried to get back in bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I decided to do my morning devotion. I was reading the Scriptures from Haggai 2:23b which say, ‘… for I have chosen you, declares the Lord Almighty.’

“No, God, we are talking about John. You are calling John.”

The next day, Marcia checked with neighbors and at work to see if they had experienced the “strong wind,” but none had. Even more telling, the leaves that her husband had raked up the day before remained — unscattered — in their piles.

She talked with the Rev. Henry Louttit, then rector at Christ Episcopal Church, who said it was possible she was being called to the priesthood. At the time, though, the

Diocese of Georgia had a bishop who did not believe in ordaining women. Louttit told her there were other dioceses who had bishops who did. But she would have to move.

“I thought that would be going in the back door, and I didn’t want to go in the back door — that if God wanted me as a priest, it would work out where we were — instead of me making it happen,” she said.

She admits she could have been running from the call.

“Then came a bishop who did believe in ordaining women, and I did nothing,” she said.

From 1990-1997, she would take two years of studies in Education For Ministry (EFM), “a course I’d longed to take. It is theological education by extension, a four-year program through the School of Theology, the University of the South” as well as a Discipleship Class, a monthly meeting on a Saturday in Waycross. (She would evenually finish all four years of EFM in 2006 and will complete her fourth summer of theological coursework in the Advanced Degrees Program at Sewanee this summer.)

“With all this education, I kept ignoring God’s call,” Marcia said. “I was a mom; I had my own business, McRae Marketing; I was in the service league. I had enough to do. I didn’t think about a call. I was ‘busy with church’ as a Sunday School teacher, and friends were ‘nagging’ me about joining a religious order, The Daughters of the King. God was using them to make me make a commitment. We take vows to engage in prayer, evangelism and service. You can see why I would run, but I eventually joined. That helped me to deepen my spirituality.”

In 1997, she became editor of The Episcopal Church in Georgia (CIGA) monthly newspaper for the Diocese of Georgia, circulation 7,000, serving 13 years until last November.   

“God’s call from 1976 or 1977 returns after I am CIGA editor,” Marcia said. “I came to realize that every column I wrote for the newspaper, I was preaching a sermon.”

Moving to Bainbridge in 1998, she began teaching Spanish in high school a year later. It had been 30 years since she had taught.

“I was too busy learning to teach again and handling CIGA to pursue the call,” she said. “Then I have the anxiety of our son (Ashton) living in D.C. area during 9/11 and the D.C. snipers.”

In her second or third year of teaching at Bainbridge High, she loved her students, and things were going great in every aspect of her life, but she couldn’t sleep at night.

“It was like God was saying, ‘Marcia, wake up. We need to talk,” she said. “I was so exhausted. One night, I said, ‘If you will just let me have a good night’s sleep, I will look into (the call).’”

She slept soundly that night.

After Bishop Louttit assured her that, as a woman in her 50’s, she wasn’t too old for the priesthood, she went through a long process of study and approval by church leaders and was ordained a deacon last August in Savannah, a step in the process of becoming a priest.

The Right Rev. Scott A. Benhase, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia, was the celebrant as Marcia Owens McRae was ordained to the Sacred Order of Priests April 16 at Christ Church in Valdosta.

I came to know Marcia at The Valdosta Daily Times, where she worked from 1973-85 and was the former features editor. Marcia’s dad, the late Dr. Robert Owens, once chaired the modern foreign languages department at VSC, and her mother, the late Charlotte Owens, was a former Spanish teacher at Valdosta and Lowndes County high schools.

Marcia will continue as the director of college relations at Bainbridge College while she serves as a respite supply priest. On May 22 and 29, she will substitute for the Very Rev. Dr. Denise Ronn at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church here.

“God is the God of surprises,” Marcia said. “I am staying open (to his direction). I want to use my Spanish again.”

As a 4-year-old child attending a Catholic school in San Antonio, Texas, Marcia had dearly loved the nun who was her teacher. As she moved from San Antonio to Mobile, Ala., she watched through her window the “abject poverty of children on porches, barefooted, and in rags and wished I could help them, but I was a Presbyterian, so I couldn’t be a Catholic nun.”

Through the school system in Bainbridge, she worked with migrants from 2003-05, going into the fields to get the children signed up for school and to distribute shampoo, treatment for lice, and reading materials.

“I wanted to throw a cloth over my car and give them communion. They didn’t need the shampoo and lice stuff we had. They needed God!,” she declared, emphatically.

“One of the times that really got to me, we called on one of the residents in the camp. We had to get the date of birth, mother’s name and where born. He did not know his birthdate or the name of his mother, from whom he had become separated, and asked his brother.

“He was born on the same day my son was born,” Marcia said, with tears in her eyes.

“That’s why I have to do something about this.”

Where will God lead Marcia next?

“God is the God of surprises.”