Here Goes. . .

This is my attempt to take the Gavin approach to blogging and just sit down to write something even though I have no idea what to write. Here goes. . .

Mark is in his final stage of ordination that propels our family into the cycle of itineracy. I've known all along that this would be the life we live and I'm OK with it. People ask me how I'll deal with it as if it's a disease we'll live with forever. I just think about all the different experiences we'll have that we wouldn't necessarily choose for ourselves. For instance, we probably wouldn't have chosen a small-town 70 miles away from Nashville, but we so value this experience and some relationships we've formed.

I realized the other day that I've never really had a sense of having a "home church" that people speak of. All my life I've sort of lived in the community, but enough outside that if I left it wouldn't be the end of the world. As I say those words a sinking feeling comes over me that maybe I've never fully committed myself to a congregation--given all of my prayers, presence, gifts, and service. But upon further reflection I think it was God's way of preparing me for the life we will have from now on. I have had great relationships in every church I've been a part of, but my "home" is in the larger community--the body of Christ. My membership is in a particular congregation, but all of me is a part of the Church. I wholeheartedly give my prayers presence, gifts, and service everywhere I go.

I'm also thinking that I'm part of a generation that is less about rooting itslef in a single congregation for life and more about what it means to be about the work of the Church in the world. Maybe that has something to do with it. All I know is that I'm ready for God to do what God will do as we continue this unpredictable pilgrimage toward the heart of God.

My Prayer This Day

My God, in these quiet moments I caught a glimpse of your vision for me. Inspire me, my God, to carry into the everydayness of my life all to which I aspire at such a moment as this. May my faith have feet and hands, a voice and a heart, that it may minister to others--that the gospel I profess may be seen in my life.

I go this hour to encounter the routine of duty with a new vision. Equip me for my common tasks, that I may this day apply myself to them with fidelity and devotion. . .

. . .I give this prayer to you who inflames my soul with vision and desire, that I may be a faithful laborer in the fields you have assigned to my stewardship. Help me to be a good and faithful steward.

--a prayer by Norman Shawchuck

Wondering About the Will of God

Scene:
10:30pm- feeding baby and putting him to bed for the night
10:35pm- remembering to tell husband that I love him
10:40pm- begging God for a night of peaceful rest
1:00am- unanswered prayer: baby wakes to eat
1:30am- baby grunting himself back to sleep; disappointed that he didn't sleep until 2 or 3.
1:35am- trying to recall a scripture verse that might give me comfort
1:40am- "Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths."
1:41am- Trusting as hard as I can and wondering why my paths still seem crooked; recalling scripture not working as comfort
1:42am- begging God to let him sleep until 7
4:45am- unanswered prayer: baby wakes w/o definite hunger cry
4:45-6am- on-again-off-again sleeping and crying
6:00am- baby is ravenous due to mother's failed attempt at assessing baby's cry
6:30am- determine sleep is now pointless; decide to get over it
7:30am- shower; wonder if unanswered prayer is more about my lack of faith and God's will or baby being only 4 weeks old; concluding the latter and determining myself officially ridiculous for wondering in the first place
8:00am- Forgetting about lost sleep and loving every second with the sweetest little baby in the world