ramblings and revelations

I've been thinking a lot lately about who I've become after leaving the CLB and the change in my vocation.  I think it's perpetuated as I'm beginning this new journey with our church plant, renovate.  I must admit there are days that I ask myself, why do I do this?  Why would I embark on this journey once again?  But then as a pastoral friend told me a few months ago, "if it's in you, it's in you."  And I know that church work is in me.  It's part of who I am. 

 

Some days it feels as if we've been gone from the past ministry for decades and others it feels like a couple of days.  Why?  Why must I continue to feel the pain of the loss of friends and ministry when I now am surrounded by these new experiences, friends and great new ministry opportunities?  Does it mean that the grieving process really isn't over yet or does it just mean I really haven't forgiven and released the people who hurt us so badly?  (Former Leader wrote a great post about the loss of friends…check it out to the right.)

 

The other day, Joanne and I talked about how "they" probably don't even care or think of us anymore, yet I find myself struggling with "them" more than once in a while.  I want to move on.  I have to let go of the past and move forward.  I definitely don't want the past to linger into the future, I don't want it to taint who I am and what I do, but what if this event in my life has imprinted me to the point of changing who I am?

 

Scratch that…it has changed who I am and what I believe.  I can't go back to the previous way of life, way of ministry, way of thinking.  Nor do I want to.  But some days, what was done or known before is more comfortable than taking on the unknown future.  But maybe that's the issue…compared to the unknown, foggy future, it's easier to look back and dwell, compare and wrestle, rather than step out of the boat onto stormy seas of opportunity and risk. 

 

Maybe this is why I hold onto the past wounds and worries rather than move tentatively at best, because it's comfortable.  Even abuse can become comfortable if it's something I know and expect.  So maybe this season is really about breaking the cycle.  Walking away from the past.  Letting it die.  Easter is the season of resurrection, maybe I've been dying a bit this year, dying to the past to give new life to the future. 

 

I remember something God showed me when we began to look at starting a new ministry:  the previous ministry was a seed that had to go into the ground and die to allow this one to come to new life and grow. 

 

The scripture he gave us for our new church seems to make even more sense in this light: "You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You'll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again."  (Isaiah 58:12, The Message, italics mine)

 

God, give me grace to let my past die.