A New Path

Being a christian disciple is not for the faint of heart.  Listening to God is hard work --After all, God doesn't usually communicate in billboards along the highway or in flashing neon signs.  Most often, God is speaking through the stillness, the subtle but constant urgings, the voices of loved ones, the challenges we live amidst.  Harder still than listening to God, is following where God leads.  God leads us down some winding roads.  Roads where the final destination is rarely seen.  Following requires faith, perseverance, trust, and a willingness to take the first step.

Earlier this spring I took a first step to follow God down a new path in life -- that of Spiritual Direction.  I have spent many years in discipleship formation and helping people to grow deeper in love and faith with God.  I love being a part of people's faith and "A-HA!" God moments.  But something kept urging me to look deeper.  To go further.  To take another step.  Through the gentle voices of people I love, through timely conversations, and through some profound prayers, I opened myself up to learning more about spiritual direction.  I wanted to answer a new part of my ever evolving call -- helping people be tuned into the holy in their everyday lives.  Providing a safe environment to explore God more deeply, more intimately, more formationally than what often occurs in a busy life or during a social Sunday morning church experience.  Realizing this desire of my heart and this added dimension to my call, I began to seek out learning opportunities.

Spiritual Direction is a growing art and practice.  There are many places that offer various programs for development and training - some in wonderful far-off and exotic places.  Further affirmation to my starting down this path was finding a very strong program close to home that works with a pastor's schedule.  So starting this June, I embark on a three year journey of training in Spiritual Direction and deeper spiritual formation at Mount St. Scholastica in Atchison, KS (SO exotic, eh?).

To say I am excited is an understatement.  To say I enter with some fear and trepidation, would also be accurate.  I don't know where this new path of my journey will lead, but I am excited that God continues to speak my name and has blessed me with the courage to answer and follow.