Just as you are

Sometimes you have to make a tough decision and you know it’s the right one, but it still has the ability to turn every mouthful of food into dust and ashes and keep you awake at night. Even a right decision.

That’s where I am right now. For those of you who have maybe followed my blog now and then when I have written it (okay I’ve had a break but I’m back), you will know that I am in the discernment process of joining the Third Order of Franciscans. I’ve been on the journey now through all the stages for nigh on four years so you can’t say I’m rushing it. And I’d reached the point where I was considering life vows.

But I've postponed.

I don’t want to go into all the details here of why. It’s not secret – it just feels a bit, shall we say, raw and private right now. And I haven’t left the Order. I’m still a novice, still, in there saying my Daily Obedience, still exploring walking in the steps of St Francis, that brave, compassionate, joyful, gentle, kind, humorous and curious follower of Christ.

I just need time and space around me and for my profession to feel a blessing and not a burden which is how it feels.

I’m not one, as you know for signs and wonders too much although I do believe God can speak to us in many different ways. But I know when I am connected, when I feel in touch when I feel at one with myself and maybe my Creator. And I had a moment of that yesterday.

I was singing in my Cathedral – my safe space and happy place – standing in the choir stalls and having nothing to do but sing. And we sang ‘Just as I am’ which is one of my very favourite hymns. I’ve written about it before which just goes to show. And those words, ‘Just as I am’ fastened themselves tightly to my wonderings and my wanderings and my doubt and my sense of shame and my erroneous belief that I’ll never be good enough and a voice whispered in my ear that I am okay. Just as I am.

And I felt my decision confirmed. And I felt released. And I felt that I could go forward believing that I am enough and my enough-ness doesn’t depend on anything but the fact that God loves me whatever I do and that’s all that matters.

So a big shoutout to anyone out there who is feeling not enough. You are. Certainly you are with God. Look – I have spent most of my life trying to fix myself so that God will love me and I’m realising now that God loves me anyway. You don’t need to fix yourself for God. You just have to ask her to enter those dark and wounded places inside where you need healing and let her do the rest.

And that takes time.

Just as you are.

Image by Ylanite