There are many places in life where the space of our story is deeply tested. The way we carry it, know it, acknowledge it, express it or try and close it down when it needs and wants to be expressed. There are moments when our story is tested in the light of another's story. Perhaps their unheld grief, the unattended to deep pain, or unrecognised discomfort with a life experience. I have found ministry to be one of those places. |
I celebrate a long space of my story. It has bumped into a space of testing. The familiarity of jelly legs, of uninvited shaking through of nervous energy discharging itself. The off the sleep jerks and twitches. The presence of previously known and experienced psychological and spiritual trauma, as a distinct shift and change in a ministry environment becomes clear. In this space of my story being tested, comes a courage, a resilience, a strength, a presence that I did not have at my disposal first time round. I'm not afraid, or worried, or running. I'm discomforted, but within that I stand with a firmness of self. I hold my story and face it. I seek to be present to the testing of my story. I know it will pass. I know it will heal, and ease. I know I will find a way through and reach another path point where something rich and deep emerges.
And I will learn and gain from it in the facing and being present to the tested story.
May we each have courage and vulnerability in these spaces of our stories. . . .