Forgive me a little personal reflection today for the Lenten post…
Finally got to the blog after a very full day here in Colorado. Worked out with a friend this morning at the YMCA here in Monument, then met our real estate agent to make an offer on a home she showed me yesterday. Still waiting to hear on that one. Had lunch with Randy and Sue Jessen, who I am glad to be close to again, and have spent the rest of the day hunkered down in a hotel room while a snowstorm rages outside. Heading up to Denver in the morning for a Board of Pensions meeting.
Driving around today I got to thinking about homes, but not in the real estate way. Looking at all these houses one of the things I realize is that "home" is really more about one's attitude and one's willingness to become part of a community. A home purchase is a legal contract, but making a home is a social, emotional, and spiritual contract that requires a significant investment of time, patience, and energy.
Over seven years we grew into Park City being our "home" and now, once again, we will go through the process of engaging in another contractral arrangement wherein we will be trusting God with our lives and our relationships. What I have discovered, however, is that when we allow ourselves to follow the call of God to new places and with new people, God is always there ahead of us; working, preparing, making a way for us.
I've been doing a lot of praying today, giving the Lord my anxiety about buying a house after seven years in a parsonage, anxiety about our kids enjoying school and making friends, anxiety about Jennifer and I making good decisions financially and anxiety about being entrusted with the care and leadership of a new-to-me congregation. As I drove around our new parish, though, I got a real sense that it's going to be ok and was reminded that God is faithful when we are faithful.
I know that somewhere else in our conference today, too, another pastor is wondering the same things about being sent to Park City and I pray for him/her, too. It's an anxious time, but it's also a time to remember that, as I will preach on Sunday, "the Lord is in his holy temple" (Habakkuk 2:20) and, as Julian of Norwich so famously chanted: "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."
And we shall be home.
