Holy Moments

My ministers asked people to write something about the last year that expressed a moment of holiness in their lives to bring back for the first fall service and share. This is what I wrote:

This summer was a conglomeration of holy moments, but if I had to pick one that had a material reminder, it would be the return receipt for my application to Meadville Lombard Theological School.

You see, about two years ago, I started feeling a call to the ministry. It did not come as a joyous, holy and sublime awakening, but rather something that I tried to ignore, and run away from! Kaaren reminded me that some of Jesus' prophets had the same reaction! However, the call to serve will not be denied, and I began to feel daily joy and transformation in knowing what part of my life's journey was to look like.

When I walked out of the post office with that slip of paper this summer, I had tears of joy in my eyes, as I often had this summer, and truly felt a moment of holiness. I had two small children hanging on to my legs, two larger ones waiting in the car, a mountain of laundry, a broken lawnmower, and an empty checkbook. However, every step of every day over the last 18 months was worth every small and large joy and sorrow in that moment and in that small slip of paper.

That moment in the post office - it was like having my life flash before my eyes - all those holy moments of the last year - seeing my babies curled up in a chair together grinning at each other, watching my oldest make breakfast while I frantically studied at the dining room table, my husband walking the baby to sleep night after night with her head on his shoulder, arms wrapped around his neck - all of those moments of personal and family sacrifice had brought me there, to the post office, to this small slip of paper - a reminder of the Unity in Unitarian - of how my friends, my family, and my church are all inextricably bound up together.

To me, that complicated moment of motherhood, vocation, education, sacrifice and love, was the most holy of all. It contained more than words can express, but the heart just filled up and overflowed.