Introduction
Wait for the LORD,
be strong, let your heart take courage.
Wait for the LORD.
--Psalm 27:14
I was raised in western Montana, surrounded by a community in a rural Bible church. During this time, I was given a tremendous education in Christian Scripture through sermons, classes, and study groups. I was encouraged to study every book of the Bible, memorize scripture, and be active within my church community and its outreach—even holding leadership roles before I graduated from high school.
I was given valuable and affirming lessons on how to belong and minister within that community’s expression of Christianity. When I went to college, I joined an interdenominational community and was a little like Eric Carle’s A Very Hungry Caterpillar, eating my way through an ever-broadening understanding of Christ within Christian denominations.
After college, I taught in native villages across Alaska, where I was introduced to native spiritual understandings, as well as to the various religions and beliefs of the plethora of educators drawn to those remote northern regions. Just as Eric Carle’s caterpillar experienced a sour stomach after sampling a smorgasbord of food, I had an exocentric crisis that left me unsure of my spiritual health.
For years, as I moved from Alaska to Michigan, got married, and raised children, I demolished, re-created, and demolished the schisms of my belief. By the grace of God, I found my way to a pew in a church that happened to be part of the United Church of Christ. In a journal entry about the UCC, I wrote: “Wait, even I can be a Christian? I can have doubts, questions, misgivings with God and religion, and STILL be a Christian? I can be me—totally me, with all my inconsistencies and so-called sins and still be not only welcomed, but loved?”
The UCC became a place of spiritual rest and support as I drew around me the chrysalis of acceptance and began the work of integrating my life experiences into the faith of my childhood.
Elisabeth at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:
The old has gone, the new is here!
--2 Corinthians 5:17
I became a Member in Discernment hesitantly, not completely sure of the process or where it would lead. I was still leery of religion and not really interested in surrounding myself with it. Yet, everything was pointing towards attending seminary. Like Moses, I gave God every excuse I could find. I developed a four-point list of impossible hurdles and told God, if they disappeared, I’d earn a Master of Divinity.
One should never make deals with the Divine. They led to painful transformational paths that turn one’s world upside down and lead to…becoming the beautiful creation God intended.
COVID hit, my employment shifted, and all my impossible hurdles disappeared in ways I did not expect nor would have chosen. But a promise is a promise, so I attended seminary, thinking of it as a race I needed to finish to accomplish… achieve…arrive!
And so began the most significant and hardest lesson of discernment: The Divine does not invite us onto paths to get us to an endpoint. The journey is not about arrival, but about the circular pattern of preparation. A butterfly emerges from its transformation so it can pollinate while waiting to bring new caterpillars into the world. The caterpillar emerges and eats while waiting to grow and wrap the transformational walls of a chrysalis around itself. We are neither the caterpillar nor the butterfly. We are the process! We grow to wait for transformation, just to emerge, so we can wait to grow more. The process is not about arrival, and it requires prayerful waiting.
I have come to appreciate the calm surrender and personal growth that come from this process. I have learned that the Spirit is not so much at work in our actions, but rather our actions are an outpouring of the Spirit’s work in our souls. There is no end to this soul-work. It is constant self-stewardship that aligns my heart with the Divine’s purposes, and it is the development of lifelong spiritual practices that nurture my faith.
Because of this, I now understand God’s call on my life is not to any specific ministerial position. I did not survive being a seminary caterpillar so that I can become a pastor or chaplain butterfly! God’s invitation is to live my life in discipleship, dedicated to God-is-Love, following Christ’s Light, and being guided by the Spirit to invite continuous growth and transformation within myself and others.
By following that calling, God has guided me into an ordainable ministry as a Staff Chaplain at Chelsea Retirement Community.
