Welcome! I am so glad that out of all the choices you had for browsing, exploring and reading today you chose to visit Grace for Days. You are participating in a historical (albeit, possibly relatively small) moment. You are reading the premiere of a new venture. The first cyber voice of Grace for Days and my next step in the journey of following God’s invitation.
For the second year now I’ve been exploring the Spiritual Exercises that came from Ignatius of Loyola’s faith journey. Last week, the reflection time was on Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel who told her she would be the mother of the Messiah. Not for the first time I wondered what she was really thinking. There must have been so much going on in her mind other than the few words recorded in Luke 1. I thought about how she had a lot more to say toward the end of that chapter. How did she get from verse 38 to verse 46?
I believe it involved two words: vulnerability and community. Mary could have chosen so many other postures: denial, pride, defensiveness, frenzied preparation…. But she hurriedly went to visit her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, who was also experiencing a drastic change in life. We really had not heard much from this woman, either, to this point. But when they came together, notice what happened. Elizabeth connected the dots in such a dramatic way that the baby inside her aging body “leaped,” and she saw clearly what was going on. Then we get to hear Mary’s beautiful acknowledgment of her place in the story of the Kingdom of God.
Perhaps on her own each of these women could have had thoughts like, “Why me?” “Why now?” “Am I up for this?” They could have isolated themselves and just endured the experience of giving life out of time. Notice the expansion within each of these women and even in us as we read this encounter.
I am retiring this month from the ministry that God birthed through me and that has been so much a part of my life for nearly 20 years. I was not sure what was coming next, but I just knew that God was leading me to do this for the good of the organization (although he didn’t elaborate on just what that meant). Secondly, I got the sense that this was also for another purpose. I had no clue what that was, but I informed leadership in 2018 that 2019 would be my final year there. As it happened, I was studying Spiritual Direction with a group of people in Alpharetta, Georgia, who have come to be the most life-giving community I’ve ever experienced and, at the same time, practicing the Spiritual Exercises in my quiet time. Through a soul-searching process within that community, God has led me to “expand” rather than “retire.”
By expanding I don’t mean like a company gaining territory or adding products. I mean expanding by investing my life and myself into others in a different but similar way to what I was doing at Safe Harbor. Instead of pouring myself into five or six women each year, I will be making whatever I have to offer to anyone who is seeking to heal, grow and be formed more into the person they were created to be.
How amazing it is to me that I am launching Grace for Days during the season that we begin to think about the advancing of the Kingdom through the birth of our King!
Could 2020 be a year of expansion for you? I invite you to join me on my journey through vulnerability and safe community.