Revelation...advent

    For as far back as I can remember I watched my math teachers. I watched how they interacted with students, how they explained the simple and yet complex movements of arithmetic, I wondered how they prepared for class and I listened as they called on my classmates. I wanted to teach, I wanted to be like them. My youth and young adulthood laid forth stepping stones that revealed a path that was much different than I had anticipated. Teaching was intriguing but what come pouring out was the joy of curriculum building. It wasn’t a curriculum based on mathematical equations that peaked my attention but a curriculum based on the steps of what it meant to be a disciple that filled my longing. From sitting underneath the stars in a small Tennessee county to years later lying on my back being enveloped by the streaks of the Milky Way Galaxy at Yellowstone National Park, there was a revelation that continued to extract a deeper sense of self and purpose. In those specific moments, there was a connection to the holy of holies that leaves one breathless, the revelation that God had come to me asking me to teach the greatest story of all time, the story of God coming into this world in the flesh of a human.  

    The revelation changed me, it wasn’t a transformation that I believed I was ready to step into.  I knew that if I took a step across the imagery line that God had woven before me that I could lose my friends who were adamant that women could not be leaders within the life of the church; much less the lead pastor and shepherd of a congregation. I was unsure as to how my beloved grandparents would respond to the news that I was going to pursue ordination within the United Methodist Church. There was the reality that I would have to change my degree in undergrad, and once in seminary, I would be on a pathway to a three-year master's degree, followed by another three-years of residency before I could be ordained.  

    As the revelation of who and what God was asking of me unfolded, I was invited to step beyond the physical world and enter the mysterious, holy world of God’s fullness with a richer, deeper sense of my own identity found in the breath of a man named Jesus. In the revelation, my “deeper self was woven and anchored in a much larger world. A world that reminded me that everything can be taken away except the hidden part of me.”  (Scott Erickson; Honest Advent.)  

    This week as we sit with Mary we will see the revelation of God’s calling enveloping her and asking her to do something that seems impossible. The revelation holds the reality of Mary feeling the weight of her life shifting like sinking sand from what she believed it would be.  What revelation is God unveiling to you this Advent Season? What deeper identity is God revealing to you through the coming of Jesus this season?