Well, this week, I began my journey into my final fall semester, and I woke up this morning feeling the weight of this semester’s expectations heavy on my shoulders. Multiple large papers due: 10 pg personal reflection paper; 20-25 pg constructive theology “Personal Credo”; 5-7 pg report on the theologian with whom I am going to be in dialogue in order to create my “Personal Credo”; a master curriculum for my ministry site; weekly mentor meetings; monthly Ministry Support Committee meetings; 2 sermons; and this journal. Sounds like a lot, huh? Well that is because it is a lot! So yes, this journal is part of that burden. Part of this the requirements for Intro to Preaching is for the student to keep a daily journal, reflecting on: the scripture reading for the day; an assigned sermon which was read, watched or heard; and/or our assigned readings for the week.
However, this semester I have committed myself to have a new frame of mind in regards to life. As I feel the heaviness of this season building upon me, I am going to embrace it. Each assignment, activity, or expectation is an opportunity. An opportunity to be stretched, molded, challenged, and transformed. I am finding within myself a deeper joy than I have experienced in a long time. It is a sense, a peace, a knowing, an understanding… that I am connected and loved and called. And it is something that has been missing for a large part of my seminary journey. This is due in a big part to the reality that I am finding a greater peace with who I am as a child of God. As such, I want to continue this reconciliation of my heart and soul and mind and strength with the One who called me, even in the midst of my blind and broken view of myself. In this light, as each assignment is completed, the pack for this semester becomes lighter, I become freer and more in tune to the Divine spark that drew me to this seminary journey four years ago.
Lord, may it be so. Amen.
Romans 8:31-39
What a gift this morning. To be intentional about this process, I cleared my desk, turned down the lights, lit a couple of candles, and began playing Chris Rice’s Living Room Series. The result is a room that is quiet, calm, and calling me into a greater awareness.
I flipped through the Chalice Hymnal to find the Daily Readings that have been laid out for personal study, and then scrolled through my calendar in order to find out what week we are in for this year, discovering that we are in the 35th week. Friday’s reading for this week is Romans 8:31-39, some beautiful words from Paul. “If God is for us, who is against us?” “It is God who justifies.” “It is Christ Jesus, … who intercedes for us.” “…we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” “…nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I laughed out loud as I began reading. Considering all that I was bringing with me as I opened up the Bible this morning, what an affirmation of the mind-set that I am feeling led to live out of for this semester. I could very easily find myself letting my mind get swept away into the torrents of the to do’s for this semester, but the deepest, truest part of my reality is right here and right now – in this moment – knowing and embracing the experience of the inescapable, inseparable, indescribable, unfathomable love of God, known to me through Christ Jesus, my Lord. This is what I must hold tightest to, and as the sometimes raging river of this semester feels as if it might over take me, I can be reminded that, I, too, am more than a conqueror.
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