In Search of Fine Pearls

I grew up in a time when it was generally accepted that a person could follow whatever pursuits he or she desired.  My generation believed that we could go to college, graduate, and then we could get jobs doing whatever we were trained to do.  We were taught to dream big and to follow those dreams no matter what. I began college with the idea that I would earn my Ph.D. in clinical psychology and eventually set up my own practice.  I finished college sensing that God had altered my path through a profound call to ministry.  So I entered seminary with the idea that I would earn an M.Div. and eventually become a pastor within a local congregation.  It made sense to transfer my dream big philosophy from one paradigm to another. I can say with great confidence that God's call upon my life to ministry was absolutely genuine and legitimate.  What I have learned the hard way, however, is that the dream big philosophy had more to do with a cultural expectatio...

Today is a Holy day for me, kind of like my Good Friday; it is an anniversary of where a part of my deep brokenness was met ultimately with God's deep tenderness.  It is a reminder that Love wins, Love heals, and that nothing is beyond Holy redemption.  My walk is more like a limp now.  I will always be marked by invisible scars that taught me more of Jesus and His all encompassing Goodness.  I will forever hate the breaking, but I will forever be grateful and better for the mending.  And so this is my offering--the poetry of a soul transformed. REDEMPTION'S SOUND To participate in redemption is to humbly listen to let lost voices speak as a willing soul gives ear to broken stories bravely told. Here the fresh grief of Divine Love enters in through humble vessels deeply hearing while gently pouring God's tenderness into the wounded. And then such Power flowing, yet gently floating this broken beloved one back into the Wholeness of Holy mending...

This life is the only one I get.  I don't think I fully understood that in the early days.  I was convinced I could do anything I wanted to do and could be anyone I wanted to be.  Life seemed to be limitless, and whatever limits I encountered could be overcome with enough persistence and will.  But lately I realize  there are things about myself I cannot change.  I cannot do anything I want to do, and I cannot be anyone other than who I am.  I am learning to recognize the perimeters of my own being.  This is who I am; at midlife those lines are holding hard and fast.  It is unlikely that I will become a different person, ever. Even as a child I remember wanting to be another kind of somebody:  somebody with straight blond hair; somebody tall; somebody outgoing and unafraid; somebody athletic; somebody different from who I was.  These desires never really went away.  They sometimes just found new ways to express that same ...