As 2010 drew to a close, I had a sense that 2011 would be quite the year.  This was more than the usual anticipation and hope and resolution that new years tend to bring.  I sensed a stirring…a shifting of the winds though I couldn’t place it or name it.  I was very open to change.  The last year had been a mixture of some great things but also some very hard things including a significant relationship loss (partly my own fault) that I am still processing…some days are easier than others.  Yet, what I was sensing seemed bigger than even these things, as big as they were to me.

Since then we have had in our home, among a slew of other things:  job loss (for 9 weeks) and job gain; two litters of hamsters (guess that means they were wrong at the pet store); one child came down with shingles; another hit a tree with the car (all occupants were just fine though a little shaken by the “adventure”); and a new unfinished journey (still candidating) into possible new directions in ministry.

Beyond our home, I have talked to so many who are feeling displaced for a variety of different reasons; I have begun journeying with someone who longs to draw nearer to God and with another who is wrestling with God as they work through the long, slow and very painful process of recovery from sexual assault; I have had the deep joy of experiencing some renewed contact with people whom I thought were completely lost to me.

Within me –

I have taken steps of faith I never anticipated I would take…some bold, some quiet…all fruitful.

I have been both restless and at peace…often at the same time. 

I have begun to see a whisper of understanding in me regarding the value of obedience when nothing makes sense;

of the grace and freedom of love when there is no expected return;

the beauty of a strength contained;

and the power of a permeable boundary that makes way for offering and trusts God for protection.

I have sensed caution slowly being transformed to mindfulness and presence to others.

Yes!  Something is definitely in the air.