Letter

Today's the day!  I thought I'd share with you all the letter that I put in the back of the ordination service bulletin.  You all have been as big a part of this as the people who were able to make it.

***

Dear Friends & Family,

I am finding it very hard to believe that I am actually writing this letter right now. I started my journey to ministry almost eight years ago. I had just preached my first sermon and was driving back to college, where I was a business major struggling through Accounting and trying to figure out how I could conquer the corporate world one day.

The sermon I had preached was a complete accident. A group from our church had returned from our first trip to Honduras several months prior and my mom asked me to say a few words about my experience. I sat down to write my “speech” and over the course of a few hours a sermon developed, drawing connections from the Gospel to what I had witnessed in Teupasenti. As I hit save and watched page after page print out, my excitement started to generate. I couldn’t believe I was about to share something so powerful with my congregation! As my mom drove me back to college Sunday after church, I looked at her and said, “What if I went into the ministry?” And that was it.

A lot has happened since then. A lot people have come into my life, people who were critical to my process of discernment and preparedness. Many of those people are here today.

Those who know me well know that I love storytelling. It is such a powerful way to get to know people and to enter into the their life and space. The “Scriptures From My Journey” tell the story of a girl who felt called to ministry - and on her way to ordination realized God was doing something incredible in her life. The words of the Psalm, “This is the day that the Lord has made - let us REJOICE and be glad in it!” remind me that every single day - even in my darkest hour - to praise God for the opportunity to wake up and see the day. The Gospel lesson from Luke, as far as I am concerned, is the most powerful Call Story in the Holy Scriptures. Mary was called to carry Jesus in her womb and she said to God, “Let me be to me, according to Your word.” When ministry gets tough, I close my eyes and say those same words. When I was going through some hard times in college, Miguel brought me to the edge of a mountainside in Honduras and told me to remember the words that Paul told the church at Philippi, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” During one particularly tragic and sleepless night at Grady this summer, a family member of a patient looked at me and said, “I don’t know how you do your job.” I took a deep breath, not really sure how I was doing my job at that particular moment and said, “Sometimes I just pray my way through the night.” My strength comes from a place beyond my realm of understanding.

Gib closed the scriptures by reading from Ecclesiastes. I latched onto this scripture during my time at Grady and have never let go. Nothing in life is permanent - we just do the best we can to work through the season we are living in. This past winter was really difficult for Bruce and me. We had left our life and friends in Atlanta and were mourning those losses, we were living in an in-between time and shoveling snow every other day. It was dark and it was cold. How quickly things have changed. The days are getting longer and warmer, we are settling into our new life in Rehoboth and immersing ourselves into a wonderful ministry. I am excited for this new season - but still grateful to have experienced the last one.

As you experience the ordination today, I invite you to feel the presence of my own saints, my grandfather, The Rev. Ernest Miko, and and my sweet friend, Lynn Redgrave. Both of these people have walked with me on this journey. They have guided me down roads I never would have walked down and comforted me in my fear and anxiety. While I mourn their physical absences, I celebrate their never-ending impacts on my life.

I started my ministry at the Rehoboth Congregational Church in Rehoboth, Massachusetts last Sunday. It was a busy and exhausting - and yet completely grace-filled - week. I look forward to returning to Rehoboth this week and being part of a congregation that has been around for almost 300 years. Please don’t lose touch - and keep up with our lives at my blog, www.thestrengthoffaith.com. I carry each of you with me every single day.

Wishing you all unexpected grace,
Sarah