Honestly…I’m not exactly sure. I know that within me there is an eager child, a peer-driven adolescent, a loving wife, an impatient pastor, a passionate evangelist, a child who is just getting to know her father, a reconciler, a vagabond of the obvious, and both a workaholic and the laziest person I know. I am all of these things and more. But the thing I would like you to know most about me is that I am seeking to understand what it means to be a child of God. This truly is the greatest journey I have ever been on.

Some of what I need for this journey God has already graciously given.

I have definitely been given an optimistic slant. I find this especially true when I am interacting with other people or when I consider the happenings of the world. I truly believe that things are working for good. I truly believe…without a hint of Pollyanna in me that God can and will use all people. I believe he will restore those things within each person they felt they had lost, that he will resurrect those things that have felt lifeless and that he will remind each person that they are valuable to him.

I have also been given a sense of well being in this world that does not echo much of the world in which I was raised. From childhood, there were many things that did not point to the ultimate stability of this world. As a young child my parents divorced and a life of financial instability followed. Living in the midst of affluence while eating government cheese should have had the direct result of a personality that feels as though life is unfair and unpredictable. But instead, through a mother who tacked the Bible verse, “Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself, “ on the front of our refrigerator, I learned to believe that ultimately things work out.

I love this piece of myself. It is a victorious and triumphant piece. It is the piece that declares to the world as Julian Norwich proclaimed over 700 years ago, “All is well. All will be well. And every kind of thing will be well.” This knowing lies deep within me and I believe it is one of the lightest parts of my being. If I were to hold it in my hand it would be weightless. If I were to paint it, it would be the color of the mother of pearl. If you could smell this sense of being it would be the smell of baking bread and it always has the felt sensation of cold nights under the weight of blankets.

Much of this sensation comes from a place within me that seems to hold on its face a perpetual smile. It is a place, which seems to be tied to strings, strings that do not bind or restrict, but rather direct in ways I am always pleased to follow. These strings are those that are able to make me stand when I stumble. They are the strings that move me to kindness when my hands would naturally hold back. These strings are the very strings that bring me to places that I thought I had chosen, but realize in retrospect I was led. Some would find these strings restrictive; I find them reassuring. Some would say these strings are a crutch. I would say to them, “I will use them so that I will not fall.” These strings are the awareness that my life is not my own, that my circumstances are not accidental and that my actions are guided by a hand that knows the larger script.

This gift of sensing God’s hand shaping my life gives me a strong sense of expectation. It is a feeling that I sense somewhere right between my shoulder blades and it always says, “I wonder what God has just around the corner.” This sense of expectation causes me to get up in the morning and say with confidence, “I got out of bed God…you had better use me.” This sense of expectation, an expectation that I will see God at work today, is the eager child within me. It believes in things that it cannot see, hopes in things that others say are lost causes, and acts on things that are only a hunch. This is an infectious part of my personality and I love it, because I am aware that it speaks loudly to those I encounter. It says with great confidence and without apology, “God is already at work…. we just need to look up and be willing to see.”

This piece within me also fuels the feet of the vagabond that pushes me to journey to new places even as I sit at my desk. Like the mystics that pursued the art of holy wandering, I love to wander both physically and mentally. I will let a smell, a sound, a sight, or a memory whisk me away in an instant. If I smell bread baking, I usually head to the bakery. If I see the wind blowing outside my window, I generally can’t wait to step out into it, to face the wind and let my lungs consume the life that rides upon this unseen force. Everything I sense is an invitation to experience something new; to explore new sensations, to listen to new stories, or old stories told in new ways. This place within me is always on the move.

This movement within me is that of a curious child, a child with an insatiable appetite for something new. Although I love this place within me, it has within it the draw of an addiction, in that it is never satisfied with what has already been consumed…it always wants more. Its hunger sometimes scares me, its childlike inability to discern the exact impulse to follow often leads me down roads that seem more like tangents than journeys. Sometimes I am unsure of whether or not I am running from or toward the thing that God intends. It is only the belief in those strings, firmly attached to my heart, the strings that did not leave me at the crossroads, it is only the assurance of these strings that causes me not to despair when I find myself retracing my steps. These strings, like those of a well-tuned cello sing to me, the simple tune that “God can and will use all things.”

On all of the roads that I have traveled…sometimes sensing God’s specific direction and at other times, picking an impulse that suited me at the time, down each and every road, has lived a person whose story I am allowed to hold. It is why it is difficult for me to say that any road was a tangent. Is a person ever a tangent, a detour, or a distraction? I cannot believe it is so. I know, with the kind of knowing that needs no explanation, nor could it explain itself, that people are not a detour but rather the purpose for the trip.

This passion for people is something that God put into my heart so early that I can fairly say that it is something that I have always had. Some seek to diminish this passion by calling it extroversion, but it cannot be explained by psychology. It is a piece within me that does not just love in order to gain something in return. It is a piece within me that feels pure and good and whole and that is why I know it is a gift. A gift that somehow God has wrapped his hands around and protected throughout my life. It loves, simply because it loves. And not just particular people at particular times. This love makes my heart smile at people I’ve never met, weep for people that travel the express lane with me, and approach people that I am sure want nothing to do with me. This is the passionate heart of a person who wants to connect others with the God she has found so faithful.

Who am I…Really? I am someone on a journey; a journey that I know brings me closer every day to the God who created me. I am flawed and I am not finished, but I hope that what God would say of me is that “I am faithful”. Faithful to the journey, to the process of understanding that I was meant to be here, meant to be who I am here, and meant to help others know the same.

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