It's been 9 years or so since I've written or even really looked much at this blog. I'm pretty sure my words have sat here on this site like the pages of a dusty old journal that was forgotten on the very top of the bookshelf or fallen behind the dresser.
There was a time I loved to think and study and wrestle with spiritual ideas and theology. I would spend hours trying to put words to the inspiration I felt, and I'd post my ideas and wonderings about God, the world, and my place in it. I loved theology from the moment I began to understand that God was actually more than an idea or some far away entity. I began to own my faith as a teenager in high school. It didn't take me very long to jump into Christianity and ministry with both feet. I grew in my understanding of Christianity under the influence of Evangelical and Charismatic leaders who loved and supported me and the call I felt to serve in ministry. My foundations of faith were formed under the teachings of these leaders who taught me how to interpret the Bible and love and serve God in the ways that they did.
I loved my life, back then. I loved going to Bible School, I loved doing missionary work overseas and working with people living in poverty. I loved working with kids and young people and leading mission teams to other countries. I was absolutely thriving in this season of my life for about 10 years, until I wasn't.
I survived a natural disaster that shook my faith and all I thought I knew about God. My connection to ministry and church changed as I became unable to continue functioning in ministry the way I once could. The things I had learned and believed about God and the Bible didn't make sense to me the way they once did. My relationships and community began to shift as my faith began to deconstruct. I left my position in ministry and essentially lost almost all of the relationships that I had worked with for all those years. More and more I realized that so many of the things I had believed about God were not as simple and black and white as I had been taught. I wandered in this wilderness for a long time, slowly rebuilding and reconsidering what I believed about God and the call I felt in my life to work in ministry.
It's a long story; but one that I am ready to tell.
Fast forward a lot of years, a husband and two kids later...we finally found a faith community that shared many of our values, a church where we could reconnect and grow both spiritually and in community. Fast forward a few more years, and I've found myself in a new season working in church again. I've found a home in a Presbyterian Church (USA) in Blaine that my family absolutely loves. I serve as the Director of Family Ministries, and I get to spend my time loving students and finding creative ways to teach and connect them to a God who loves them while being surrounded by an amazing faith community.
The spiritual paths I have walked with my Christianity have been filled with twists & turns, blind spots & break downs. I've gotten lost and been found more times than I can count. I've wrestled through deconstructing and reconstructing my beliefs about God, the church and my spirituality. I've been in a process of healing from my own trauma and my journey through a spiritual wilderness. By grace and with a little bit or courage, I've managed to find my way back into ministry and a faith community again. It's been both painful and beautiful.
My hope is to revive this blog as a safe, sacred space to share my journey and connect with other people who may relate to some of my story or be looking for a space to share theirs. I find the more I grow in my faith that I have more questions than I have answers. That is what makes this faith thing both profound and ridiculous, messy and beautiful.
A Barefoot Pursuit of a King: I started this blog years ago with the desire to create a safe space to process and have conversations about this beautiful journey of faith I had found myself on. I called it a 'barefoot' pursuit because I had this image of myself traveling down a gravel path, barefoot. One foot in front of the other, my feet feeling the gravel beneath them as I stumble onward, feeling the sharp rocks cut into my skin and the dirt clinging to my exposed toes as I put one clumsy foot in front of the other. My pursuit is of a "king" because the Jesus I love was called "king" both at the beginning and the end of his life in the scriptures. This "king" has been the source and center of my spiritual journey.
I hope you will find safety and sacred space here and maybe even the courage to jump into this mess with me.
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