Leaves, Leaves, Leaves. I have been raking leaves this morning. It seemed that the more I raked more of a battle I was having with the wind. Just when I had things in my neat little pile here came the wind and whipped the leaves up and around, a snow storm of thin pin oak leaves swirling around beautifully, but no longer in the neat pile ready to be raked and dealt with.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit seems to do exactly the same thing in my life. Here I am focusing on my life trying to make things neat and orderly, doing what needs to be done, when the Spirit blows through. My neat orderly life is swirling in a whirlwind of new possibilities, a tornado of grace creating something I had never even thought of out of my somewhat orderly life.
Two years ago the Spirit blew through my life and as a result I am no longer sitting safely in the comfort of my Lutheran congregation of almost 30 years. I am instead enrolled in a program learning to be a Spiritual Director. I am leading SoulCollage® classes and have started a Women’s Sacred Circle. So when the Holy Tornado or even the small still breeze of the Spirit flows through someone else’s life, they will have someone to witness the miracle of God at work. In my new role I can be that safe haven where others can ask those questions about God that oftentimes frowned upon in our churches, helping others find a way to be still and know that the Spirit is at work swirling the possibilities of hope.
We only need to take a look at the stories in the Bible to know that Holy One never does things the way we expect. The shepherd boy is called out of the fields to slay a giant, a teenage girl is called out of her chaste life to birth a savior, a persecutor is blinded by the Light of the Spirit on the road to Damascus to be a missionary for the very cause he has been so adamantly fighting. No, just when it seems that we know what it is we are supposed to be doing; God calls us out to do something beyond our imagining. The Whirlwind of the Spirit is at work swirling around beautifully. How grateful I am that new possibilities abound.
Happy Thanksgiving!
