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I'm feeling scattered and frazzled and altogether chaotic. I'm not in any sort of regular routine, I'm not eating very well, I'm not exercising, and I'm getting too little sleep. My apartment is still a half-unpacked mess of boxes and the details of my work for these fabulous churches are still being discussed and finalized. There's not a lot of order in my life at the moment and I don't feel very grounded or stable.
This is how it goes with transition, of course, and soon things will settle down and I'll find my groove. But for now, after arriving late (again) for something the other day, I had to assure my supervisor that I'm normally a lot more together than this. (Okay, it was really assurance for myself; she wasn't concerned at all.)
Meanwhile, I had a couple of wonderful glimpses this week of that stability and groundedness that I'm missing. I'm preaching at First Lutheran on Sunday, so I was there a couple different times this week.
I worshiped with the community on Wednesday evening and experienced Christ's presence in the word and in the bread and wine of communion. The distribution was made even more special for me by the pianist's choice of music. She played the very hymn that inspired the title of this blog!
Another day I got to join the pastor and two others in praying morning prayer, which they do four days a week. It was refreshing and life-giving to join together in prayer for one another, for specific individuals in need, and for all the world.
I find something very powerful in hearing someone pray for me, or even in someone telling me I'm in their prayers. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in Life Together, "Offering intercessory prayer means nothing other than Christians bringing one another into the presence of God, seeing each other under the cross of Jesus as poor human beings and sinners in need of grace."
The fact that these three people brought me into the presence of God calmed the chaos around me that morning. I know others are lifting me before God in prayer as well, and keeping that in mind helps me regain my my footing in the midst of this transition. So thank you for your prayers!
On groundedness (which may or may not be a real word)
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Posted by Amanda at 7:07 PM
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3 comments:
Just a few thoughts...
First of all, I want to assure you that you are in my prayers all year; I know this is a challenging site!
Second, *some* of this chaos will pass once you're more settled in...but one of the challenges of this site is that details of your assignments for your eight churches will always be somewhat open-ended (although I hope, for your sake, that they are less open-ended by the end of the year than mine were!). As far as work goes, you really aren't going to be able to settle into a routine. For me that was a huge way that God used internship to help me grow--to learn how to trust in my abilities and training and how to be flexible, and how to go into each day without the "safety net" of knowing the expectations of the congregations and individuals I was serving, or even clearly what hours I would be working on any given day. It drove me absolutely nuts!
And finally, I can assure you that you are probably at least as put together right now as any of the clergy you're working with (except possibly Luther, who I don't know terribly well)...some of them are consistently late, some of them will never have with them things they were supposed to bring, some of them won't remember five minutes after being told something what it was they were told (or even that they were told it at all)--but all of them are doing wonderful ministry in the area, and I have every reason to believe that you are too.
Again, my prayers are with you. If you ever need to vent, I'm on Facebook IM basically whenever I'm at home (or you can message me there).
Also, for exercise--I'm sure by now you've already found Nerstrand Big Woods state park, which has some pretty good hiking trails. There's also Sakatah state trail, which begins down in Faribault (it starts by the Dairy Queen at MN60 and I-35), and which goes all the way to Mankato. Neither set of trails is plowed during the winter (both are frequented by snowmobilers) but since Sakatah is paved, as long as you have boots you can get away with walking there.
Thanks, Michelle! It really is going pretty well, and I do get that the chaos will continue on some level. If I can just finish unpacking and get a little more disciplined about sermon prep, I'll be in good shape.
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