Reflections on a Year of Everything

A year ago today I released a deeply beloved way of being, 

 and stepped aside and up and into another and next chapter of being who I am.

On May 27th last year, my community of faith, my family of Highview, worshiped with me and generously expressed their love and gratitude for my role in our lives together as their Pastor, and commissioned me to the love-work God had been growing in me to do in Thailand.  These days I am 'Ahjahn Ruth', Canadian Director of the New Family Foundation and Highview's "missionary in residence". 



It was a big step.
It was a big day.
It's been a big year.

Not since birthing my first child, some thirty-seven years ago, has there been an event in my life that has brought with it such a dramatic change in the way I think and feel about myself.   Even as I was released to work I love with great passion, these past twelve months I have processed and cried and journalled and prayed my way through what felt like brand new, and sometimes terrifying territory.

Not sure I'm done yet.  Not sure I've done it even remotely well.  But it seemed prudent somehow to take a moment, here at the one year mark, and make a list of learnings.  Yes, a list.  Reflections and random insights from a year of this much change.  Things I know now that I didn't know then, or a least knew only lightly.

• A life of abundance is nurtured over the long haul.
• Being separated from community for a prolonged period of time is a wretched, dreadful thing.
• Releasing long held responsibility happens pragmatically once, and psychologically over and over again in extremely thin layers.
• There are many ways to love that don't involve being in charge.
• We often have more impact on those around us than we imagine.
• In the disorientation and loneliness, God really is enough.
• Nothing, absolutely nothing really belongs to us, even and maybe especially the deeply precious. 
• Just because you've surrendered what feels like your greatest treasure doesn't mean He might not ask you for more.
• Surrendering our greatest treasures to the wisdom and love of God is probably the most intimate our spirits get with God.
• Being stripped of title and role reveals what you're really made of.
• Wise friends who listen without judgement AND who are strong enough to make honest observations are worth one hundred times their weight in gold.
• The bigger the change the more worth it it is to work through to all the amazement that's waiting.
• God wastes nothing, even work that's invisible.
• God wastes nothing and everything you've done up to this point has been in preparation for this thing now.
• Change combined with a surrendered heart is a catalyst for unleashing shalom. 
• Love really is the bottom line.

I'm not done yet, this adjustment thing.  Almost, I think, but not quite.  I want to give myself enough time to do it as right as I can do it, or at least to stop and acknowledge my mistakes.  There are some things you just can't rush, and, as weird and disorienting and even painful as it's been, there's also enough wonder and rush and life and joy to make me want to pay attention and be fully present in all of it.

I could not possibly reflect on this past year without expressing deep thanks.

• To my wise and patient friends who listened and honestly observed with me this past year in ways above and beyond.
• To my husband whose love in risking this new thing with me sustains me in ways imperative.
• To Highview for allowing me the breath-taking honour of both serving you as pastor in the past and remaining among you to worship now. 
• To Pastors Suradet and Yupa for trusting me to serve with you like this in our new adventure together as New Family Foundation.
• To my Best and Tender Father-God for holding me together, unbelievably believing in me, and pouring out Your abundance on my life, over and over again.