Monday Morning Musing: Endings and Beginnings and Endings and Beginnings....

I missed posting anything last week because, well, because I was juggling the myriad of emotions that come with leaving a place of significance and returning home. Trinity Lutheran Seminary is a thin place for me. I was formed for ministry here. When pieces of my life came crashing down, I was cared for here. I learned so much about myself here and about what God was calling me to be and do in the world.

Being back at TLS in this new role over the past two and a half years has been such a joy and privilege. I've stretched myself professionally and vocationally. Working with these students has been a gift. They are remarkable and brave. I've gotten to sing again with the professor who taught me when I was in seminary. No one plays the organ the way she does. It's glorious. I've served with two of my professors and with a colleague who became a friend. Bruce and I have LOVED living in Bexley; it's the best small town in a big city anywhere. We've had amazing neighbors and made new friends and I've rekindled old friendships and my, oh, my, it's just been so much fun.

Still, every night when we get quiet, we speak of our kids. Not a day passes that we don't hear from one of them and oh, how lovely is that. In my morning prayers, I name them each and pray for their well being and wish with every piece of me that I could meet them for lunch. And we miss our friends in the PNW, too. Neighbors who became friends and my caftan-wearing-crew and Bruce's long time friends.

We knew. We knew in our bones that it was time to set our hearts and our minds back toward home. And that knowing made us glad. And sad.

Still, on Tuesday we will get into the car and point west. Along the way we'll see people we love and places we've known and some places we've never been. We have it mapped out, but are trying to leave space for surprises. Good surprises, we hope. We'll get to hug and kiss our kids along the way too until we finally end up in the same town as two of them and much closer to all of them.

We've created some room to rest and renew and watch for signs of new life. Resurrection life. Life that is full and sweet and life that we know will also carry challenge and heartache and we want to be ready for it all. I also pray each morning for the next call from the Holy Spirit....I'm not finished serving yet.

Because I always end these posts (which are usually much shorter; thanks for hanging in there this far) with a poem or prayer from the pen of another, I offer this familiar prayer:

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us, and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Evangelical Lutheran Worship, Evening Prayer)