Cindy Wallace
Veterans Affairs Hospital Chaplain in Washington, DC
By Val Hassard
Val Hassard
I don’t think I will ever be as cool as the Rev. Dr. Cindy R. Wallace, but I intend to keep trying. Cindy has more degrees than should be possible for a human to complete in one lifetime: bachelor’s in vocal performance, M.Div., D.Min, and just recently threw in a Master of Education in Clinical Mental Health Counseling as her “retirement plan.” She’s served as a music minister, children’s minister, hospice chaplain, mental health chaplain, and now she’s a chaplain at the Washington DC Medical Center, specializing in spiritual care for mental health patients, suicide prevention, and she literally wrote the book on grief groups (From Loss to Life and Back Again: A Grief Group Curriculum).
More importantly, she’s an incredible mom, and she’s ready to fight for her kids and her patients at any moment. You know she’s rising to defend the overlooked, the bullied, and the marginalized when her Mississippi accent gets thicker than grits! She took me into her family with a balance of tender mentorship and tough love, and I am not the only person who benefited from becoming one of her many kids. When you look back at Wallace family photoshoots over the past ten years, you find not only her two biological sons, but me and a variety of other non-biological young adult kids. Her definition of family is any person who needs to be loved, and every one of us is proudly displayed on the walls of her home. Mom inspires me every day with her tenacity, justice-seeking, and wide-open love.
Val Hassard works in student support services at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she lives with her wife.
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Reflection and resources at the intersection of faith and culture through an inclusive Christian lens.