Lent Day 22

It's amazing to me how many of the RevGals are in some kind of transition. Calls ending and beginning, discernment processes happening, finding out about or starting school or seminary, pregnancies, cross country moves, ends of relationships and more. I guess it is all the stuff of life of a big circle of friends, but it does seem like there is a lot of it going around. One of my clients who is a massage therapist and astrologer says this is the year of the Saturn return for any one who might be in certain years of their lives (she and I among them.) Supposedly this is a time of great upheaval and change that comes around every twenty-eight years. When I think back twenty-eight years, that was certainly one of those years. Life decisions were made, a course was set for my life that I am still living in many ways. There were upheavals and upsets. I gave my poor mother more than a few new gray hairs that year. So who knows, here we are twenty-eight years later and my client says "here we go again." I have alluded to the fact that for me, too there is change in the air. My professional and church life are stable (as far as I know). Our clinic is solvent and I am busy, so no worries there. I am locally ordained, so there is no thought about taking a call elsewhere, and as long as our church is here, I plan to be also. No, this one is a bit closer to home. Sometimes in the struggle toward authenticity, there are painful discoveries. And sometimes those discoveries affect our lives in ways that affect not only ourselves but those we love. Sometimes we find that decisions made in an earlier time have to be re-examined to see if they are still the healthiest and most authentic way to live now. And this is scary and hard and painful. It requires the facing of hard truths, taking the risk of hurting and being hurt, as well as as the risk of being judged for the choices I may make in the future. I am reminded of course that this is not nearly as much in my control as I would like to think, and really never has been. That it is, as it has always been, in God's hands. And that my most serious and enduring job is to fall into God's love and trust in God's good will to work things out for good. Not necessarily for my idea of what's good in this moment, but for God's big picture good. I am doing more and less well at this depending on the moment. Some nights I can sleep. Others, MPR and I are spending hours of quality time. Some days, I can focus and function, and I really believe that all will be well. Other days buying groceries and doing laundry seems like a gargantuan accomplishment and even my hair hurts. Some days I sense God's presence and feel borne up by the prayers of those I know are holding me, and other days I feel abandoned by all, including, or most especially, God. Though I know in my heart that is purely perception, and that it is God who saves me every step and that I am not alone in a human sense either. In fact, the one who stands to be hurt the most is one of my greatest supports. The irony of this does not escape me, nor does the hand of God in it. We live out loud in a gold fish bowl in this little world of ours. Whatever happens in our lives in the next few months it will happen in full view of our church and community. My greatest prayer is that I can be honest and humble and authentic through it all, and cause the least collateral damage possible as we try to sort this all out.