Perched on the Precipice

There are moments when it seems fitting to stop, process, and reflect; like on New Year's Eve or any other moment when what comes next will change the rest of your life. So, with wine in hand, I'm taking a moment.

Tomorrow I will know where I'm spending the next 3 years of my life. Perhaps that doesn't quite measure up to the vast change that happens when a child is born, or marriage vows are taken, or someone dies. But for me, it is the moment when I finally leave the "Land of Uncertainty."

I have lived in this place for over 4 years. I have surrendered over and over and over again, praying, "God your will be done." Actually, the prayer was not quite that eloquent or succinct. It was more along the lines of, "Lord, I have no idea what we're doing here and I really want to know what you want, so if this isn't it, please close the door. Be clear with me because you know how dense I am. You are good and whatever you will for me is good so please help me to accept and embrace whatever that is."

I have told the truth when it meant a potential end to this process of formal discernment. I have bounced like a ping pong ball back and forth when my truth threw the authority that is in place, into a quandary: "Well we've never had this happen before...(a 40 something year old woman coming out in an attempt to be completely honest and authentic) and we're not really sure what to do with her..."

I realize that I've put down roots in this land of holding things loosely, and now when I am about to find out a certainty that will shape the direction for my career and potentially the rest of my life, I am undone.

I have spent close to 4 1/2 years desperately wanting to know the end of the story, or at least part one. I have wiggled and struggled in the restraints and tried to calm my heart. I've been tossed back and forth by others and tried to stay open to the idea that maybe this was God speaking through circumstance. And now here I am, in complete amazement at this place in which people have said "yes" to my call, trying to take in that God has said "yes" to the offer of my life on Her altar, and the thing that I have waited for so long--the decision--unhinges me.

My rector and parish said yes. My second rector and parish that so graciously took me in after I came out, said yes. My peers said yes. My Bishop said yes. Tomorrow, my school will say yes and I will know where the next set of uncertainties are to be lived out.

I am amazed to have been brought this far. I've lost count of the times when I readied my heart for the door to be closed, and yet, miraculously, here I am. I still don't know what I'm doing here and in truth, I am completely daunted at what lies ahead. But, there is no question in my heart that this is the path. Tonight I will not think of where or how. I will enjoy the bliss of not knowing. I will dwell in the land of maybe. Tonight it's all undecided and I find that I actually like this place. This place that I've done everything I could think of to leave, is the place I now grieve to leave.

But happily, for me there will be many, many more places of uncertainty to come.

Anything is possible.

Always.

Thank you dearest Lord.

Amen