Circular Life

We have probably all heard the phrase, ‘the circle of life’.  It is a thought, a philosophy, a lesson for life.  It is used to describe the cycle from life to death.

However, within our lives, within that circle that extends from birth to death, there are various other circles within our life as well.  Times come when, in the midst our daily lives, when events circle around to us again.  I have had this experience more than a few times, usually through people who come back into my life.

Today while attending the Fall Theological Conference for the Southwestern Minnesota Synod of the ELCA (in which I am doing my internship) I have yet again experienced this circular way in which God deals with His Children.

I hold fast to the idea that God brings people, events, and thoughts into our lives for specific purposes, and often can and does bring those same people, events and thoughts back round to us again.

One of the presenters here at this conference, Susan Briehl, has played that role in my life on several occasions.

When I was still in college, getting ready to graduate and had decided that I longed for a ‘normal’ life with a career teaching and a family so I had thrust the idea of seminary and being a pastor far from my mind, I went to Holden Village with a group from my Lutheran Campus Ministry.  Susan was the director of Holden at the time.  When she greeted our group at the beginning of our stay, she briefly mentioned the role we play in the ministry of God, and encouraged us not to put away thoughts of a change in our roles in the future.  They were good words for others, but I knew with the arrogant knowledge of youth that God had seen the brilliance of my plan for my life.

Years later, I came to realize while a missionary in Japan, that I was merely a steward of this life.  The life I had and the path on which I belonged, not to me, but to this amazing God that I could not wait to spend a lifetime serving.  So as I returned to the United States, it was with the faith that God’s voice was now beginning to drown out my own as I took the step to begin seminary.  

With this newfound confidence not in who I was, but in who God was creating me to be, I completed my time as a missionary with the ELCA by attending the Summer Missionary Conference.  One of the presenters at that conference was a member of the committee that was reshaping worship and developing the Evangelical Lutheran Worship book.  The tickling in my mind’s storage closet kept me aware that she was important to my story.  Somehow I knew that in this leader was a connection to who I was and to whom I was becoming.  When she spoke of the way one’s role in ministry changes, and gave her example (including her time at Holden), the closet door sprung open and spilled forth the contents of that long ago retreat.   I took heart at the time, feeling that this was an indication that I was indeed in the right place, at the right time, for the right purpose.  God had redirected, taking my detours and using them to strengthen me for His church.

Four years of seminary, of studying, writing, being emptied, and filled again, later, I have come to the last stage in this leg of the journey.  I am an intern, working everyday in this lifestyle we call ministry.   So it was a delighting and unsurprising surprise, that I realized I was once again sitting and learning from and with Susan, who has been present at so many significant moments of my vocational journey.  

Many would say that this is coincidence, happenstance, or simply a byproduct of being in the same, relatively small church body.  I certainly understand that those are the most likely and logical explanations.  

Yet for me the truth of this occurrence defies logic.  At least it defies human logic.  The truth is that God speaks through the people who proclaim the Gospel.  God works through each and every one of His children in amazing ways.  And God knows how and when to do this work.  God has brought Susan into my life at times critical to my vocation to help me remember who and whose I am.  I am not a teacher, a woman, a leader, a preacher, or a pastor.  I am God’s child, and more specifically I am God’s child of purpose.