I hear confession is good for the soul. Well, I have something to confess. I have not been writing. That's pretty obvious. It's been a good three months since I visited my own blog. But I have something else to confess. The reason is fear. I've been afraid. I've been afraid of what others might think. Not others as in people I know. But others who work at the place where I've applied for a new job. I was afraid that my writing could keep me from getting a position that I wanted and my family needed. But that's not the worst of it. I've not been writing because I was afraid that my writing didn't matter anymore. I've not been writing because I was afraid that I didn't matter anymore. That the place from which I write is no longer valid because it comes from a place of ministry in me, and it sure looks like ministry is over in my life. And it is so hard to believe that God can open up doors for me to live out of that sacred place that He put in me, in just the way I need to live out of it. Oh Lord Jesus! Why did you make me sucn and odd person? Why am I the way I am? Why can't I just go pastor some church and be done with it? Why couldn't you have made me a wonderfully round peg that matches all the round ministry holes?
But there is a bigger fear. It's the fear that if I don't write that sacred place within me will die. I don't know if I can live with myself if I allow that to happen. And so I'm stuck in this hard, hard place. I so want to connect to the deeply passionate, spiritual, and pastoral places within. But to do that I have to also live in the frustration of not knowing if there will ever be a place of ministry that I can fill.
Not everything has been out of the book of mid-life crisis 101. In many ways I have a deep and profound joy. I feel like I've found myself. I love being home. I love being more present and available to my family. I love being a mommy and not having to choose between my own children and the needs of a flock in my pastoral care. I love being a wife and blessing my husband. I love being home. I love it. It is where I feel most alive and most at peace. I believe I have found there my most important work, my most important legacy. When I die I will be so thankful for this time, this opportunity, this availability, this vocation. In many ways this time is the ministry that means the most to me, even though it is so very costly.
So this is the day I face my fears. I don't know what the future holds. I just know that I not done yet. I still have words left in me that I need to express. Mostly so I can find my way through this hard time. I need to know that the minister within is still alive. I need her. And I believe my children and husband need her too. And maybe, just maybe, someday she will be needed in the Body of Christ again too.
