Sacred Ground Ministries

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

Mary Oliver

I woke up today with it feeling a bit like Christmas morning. Something about the new year, I suppose. I love a new beginning because it is a second chance.

Second chances are so important. As we go on day by day parts of our life become messy and can even begin to be something we don’t like. The great and beautiful freedom of living is the ability to stop what we’re doing and do something a little or even completely different. We have so much more control over our days than we sometimes believe. Feeling trapped is often a trap.

2017 was good to me. Maybe I say that because it’s gone, and doesn’t something always look a little better after it’s over? Nevertheless, it was a good one. It was a year of building, building literal church buildings, building relationships, and building the one life that I can, my very own. However, entering 2018 feels a bit like standing in a construction zone. The general structure is together, there are maybe even windows and doors, but it is very much still in progress. Still in need of completeness. Still in need of Shalom.

Shalom is a Hebrew word and idea with no true equivalent in the English language. The closest we have would be peace. David and I chose this word to be the banner over our 2018 year. Typically when we think of peace, it calls to mind only the absence of conflict but there is a deeper meaning that is life-changing.

The word Shalom carries with it the sense of wholeness and fullness, it is the state of being in peace with oneself, with others, and with God. It is the idea of being in complete unity with God and then letting that flow down into who I am as a person. This means having wholeness in my thoughts, thinking of myself as a beloved Child of God, having wholeness in my relationships, loving deeply and maintaining boundaries, having health while keeping my self-esteem intact. Allowing the walls of my house to be painted, for carpet to be laid, and to inhabit more fully this one precious and wild life that I have. 

This process is very much a journey, full of wonder, peril, and simply placing one foot in front of the other. I hope that I can say at the end of 2018 that I am more in a state of Shalom with who God is and who I am.

“Any other goals for the New Year?,” you may ask. Why yes, there is one. Establish a laundry day.

Lovingly,

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