Awakening

Things have been fairly sleepy over here at "Our Journey" over the past five years, and far too much has transpired to catch you up dear reader. But, suffice to say that the journey has continued, in and out of new communities and new adventures, and today finds us on the precipice of yet another new beginning. We are waking up to the reality of a new life, a new ministry, a new call, and a new community here in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Over the past five years we have faced some of the hardest challenges of our life together - the ordination process and graduate school, four moves, making sense of our year in mission, and the death of Jered's father. Over the past five years we have celebrated some of the highest moments of our life together - our five year anniversary, graduating (both Jered and Erin) from grad school, two ordinations (for Jered), new amazing jobs, and most especially the birth of our son Jude! We have grown closer with our families and have experienced a deepening sense of God's abiding presence in our lives. Truly life is good because God is good! We are waking up, daily, to the sense that this journey is not entirely about us (duh), but about the One who calls us and shapes us and beckons us ever further into the mystery of life. This journey is God's and we count ourselves blessed to be fellow travelers on the way.

There is an unspeakable delight that comes from knowing and experiencing that our lives are truly and inseparably God's, that we rest in God's infinite grace. If we are awakening, then we are also waking to this reality - Christ behind us, Christ before us, Christ under our feet - we are ever and always with the God who made us, called us, and loves us.

Beginning something new, standing on the precipice, taking the leap, any and all of it, then, seems doable because we have not come this far alone and we will not venture forward on our own. For more dispatches from our various stops along the journey, check back often.