Starting again

I used to write a couple different blogs.  One was for all of my serious religious thoughts.  The other was a decoy to make you believe I could also be fun and playful.  That was more than a decade ago.  Then I put them both aside for many years.  Now I have decided to begin again, on a new page, in one space.  Who knows, I may be the only person who ever reads this.  That's OK.  (Oh, and my spouse.  I'll share it with him too).

Something that I feel like God is helping me with is not making everything about me.  I don't know where this comes from.  Maybe my upbringing as the youngest girl in a family of 4 kids.  I spent a lot of time watching things happen around me.  I guess at some point I finally let loose and started demanding equal time and attention.  I don't know.  

I've been in the ministry for more than a decade.  And I've been involved in 12 step programs for more than a decade.  When I went to seminary, one of my friends who was already ordained told me, "Don't let seminary change you!"  I promised I wouldn't.  It did.  LOL.  I'm one of those people who is influenced by my experiences.  I don't think we live in an impenetrable bubble.  How can experiences not affect or influence you somehow?  So yes, there were people I encountered in seminary who poured into this journey I'm on.  It changed me.  I encountered thoughts and ideas about God I had never considered.  And I put a few to bed.  Some I picked back up again.  Others remain RIP.  And that's OK.

At any rate, I pray really hard every day to stop making it about me.  The 12 step world has taught me to stop playing victim and martyr.  And my Christian faith has taught me that humility and obedience are really what it's all about.  Not humility and obedience toward an ogre God who is oppressive and punishing.  But humility and obedience toward a God with infinite stores of love, mercy, and wisdom.  

The other night, I was at a meditation meeting.  The last thing I heard the speaker say before we set the timer for our 20 minute meditation is, "Trust the process."  So that became my mantra as I replayed in my head what had turned out to be a crazy day. (I don't think that's what you're supposed to do when you meditate.)  I kept asking, "Where's the process in THIS (expletive deleted)?"  Then the thought became, "Everything is the process."  I can get on board with that.  Everything forms me (if I'm willing to surrender to it).  Finally, it became, "God is the process."  Yes, God is up to something in the right-here -- visible and invisible realms.  And to the extent my limited vision and non-neutral POV can see it, I want to share it ... here.

That's all.

Have a great day. 

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