If the Mirror Could Show Two Faces

Well, friends, the word is spreading, so I should probably make the announcement myself: in just under two weeks I will be leaving the Office at North Park and starting a new job at the denominational offices of the Evangelical Covenant Church. Tonight I say this with a nearly equal mixture of joy and bittersweet sorrow.

The opportunity I have been given, and the position I will fill, is a joining of my abilities in the communications realm with my calling to ministry. For this, I can be nothing but excited - and astounded at the careful way God has prepared me and brought this about in His time. Tonight in class, a professor with whom I have started to become friends, chuckled as she looked at me, saying, "You just have a huge smile in your entire face-and you can't stop it!". It's true: my face is starting to hurt from grinning so much-but I can't stop it! This is as much about the work I will be doing as knowing, for one of the few times in my life, that I am walking closely enough with the Father that He has led me to this turning point in my life - and I can confidently follow Him down the road. What a rush!

As I continue to work in my current office for the next week and a half, though, I also cannot help but see the joys and the inspiration that I have forgotten for too long. It is not ironic, but perhaps true to my faith journey, that in anticipation of what is next to come I can look at what I am leaving and see so many ways that I could find to stay put. If the road ahead were not so inviting, it would be a temptation to pull back the reins and make a 180-degree-turn back to familiar ground. It is for this inspiration, this joy, and some amazing people that I will leave with a weight in my heart.

But here there is hope, as well, and this is what I must hold onto, even as I am a bit tremulous at the road ahead: that what I am leaving is not a world that will fall apart, nor a world that is my own. But it belongs to a much Higher Authority, and those in it walk with fear and trembling the road He is destining for them. I place my hope in the knowledge that great things are possible because I am leaving; it is not simply a door closing, but one opening. There are plans we do not know, opportunities that are not now apparent - and that is just as exciting for the Office as it is on a personal level.

Tonight, as I write about my own joy and trepidation, my heart is yet more heavy for a tiny baby girl fighting for her life. If you have a moment, won't you join the Seminary community, and many others, in prayer for Baby Evie and her parents?