Letting Go and Letting God

      We have now entered into the season of Lent, a time to reflect, repent, reconcile, and intentionally renew our relationship with God. Although doing these things may and should be done each day of the year, the period of Lent calls special attention to our own sinful nature and our need for forgiveness and reconciliation with our Father. It is also a time of allowing our burdens to be taken so that we may truly allow ourselves to be transformed into the people that God has made us to be.

 As I enter into this season of Lent, my heart is particularly heavy. I have just ended the discernment process to the diaconate and I am left with many questions as to where I feel God has called me. In my committee meetings I have been able to discern that the ministry I feel called to may not be to that of being a deacon in the church. Although this process has left me at times feeling very peaceful, I have also at other times felt unease and anxiety in now not knowing God's plan for my life. One week after ending the formal discernment process I have felt lost, truly lost. Where does this leave me now in my feeling of being called to something more in the way of ministry? What is my role, my ministry, my identity in this time of uncertainty? I feel lost and I long to be found.

 So it is at this point that I enter into Lent, exhausted at my own futile attempts to see just exactly where God is now leading me and knowing in my heart that I am his beloved and that he has me in the palm of his hand.  I fall, hands lifted, heart weary and aching and ask for forgiveness. I exhale slowly all of "self" and give over  my desire to know how things are going to turn out. I collapse at his feet, broken and he scoops me up and covers me with a blanket of grace while he whispers gently, "I love you.  .  . you are just where I want you to be . . . close to me, right by my side." And so the process of transformation in my heart begins as I let go and let God.