Categories: uncategorized
Date: 22 March 2012 15:25:22
So the e-mail came through yesterday evening in the end; with no working computer at home I discovered the decision when Third Party came in and went on her phone for me. The conclusion was that at the moment my call is not clearly to the Methodist Diacaonal Order. Therefore as Third Party noted with a sense of frustration in her voice, "it means that bloody blog is staying".
I think I am meant to be feeling disappointed, that's the emotion that the letter; emails and various comments have referred to but I honestly don't. The wierd thing is neither do I feel relieved, (the emotion I was - up to last week atleast - expecting to feel if it was no). I simply feel a huge sense of what is right has happened and the comments within the letter articulate why it was the right conclusion and so now I move on to whatever is next.
For a moment I worried I was becoming like Data in Startrek next generation and losing my emotions when I felt neither disappointment or relief, but having reflected I can see - I think - why I am feeling as I am. The conclusion reached was put in very affirming terms and the doubts expressed totally echoed feelings within myself about why I was wary about being accepted to train. Within the letter things I don't always see within myself as well as bits of what I know make me the person God has made me were affirmed. And that's what the whole process has done really - affirm me and let me know that whilst I am still searching for the exact shape my ministry will take that I am called to undertake a form of ministry which is not covered by your normal list of "jobs to be done". I have had my eyes opened to the fact that however insane it might sometimes feel that I am a sane person, who has skills and who has specific strengths God can, (and has), been using. God has a plan for me, but it probably doesn't involve being a paid representative working within the institution so the formal ordination route is, I think, unlikely to be for me - although I am not ruling anything out at this point, (especially as the door was more shut for now than definately shut forever).
So as we end I thank you for your good wishes and prayers and I continue to ask for your prayers as I work through the implications of this and continue to seek to discern what it is God has been/ is leading me into.