my journey to Spiritual Direction

By mid-life, I recognized I had lost sight of who I was. A student Spiritual Director needed someone on whom to practice, and I began a journey that would lead me places I had not had the capacity to even imagine. I caught sight of my inner life and a new way of being, a way of listening to God who made a home within me, rather than listening to those outside of me. I found freedom from fear, courage to take risks, and peace, joy and love.

Now, twenty years later, I have the profound privilege to walk with others on that holy ground of discovering so much more to life than they had imagined.

How did I get here? By living a life of YES: following God’s Nudges one step at a time, God’s Beaconing beyond my comfort zones, and God’s Presence into places I would once have feared to tread. With a sense of Jesus by my side, my marriage shifted slowly toward renewed vitality, I earned an M Div. from Lancaster Theological Seminary, completed four units of Clinical Pastoral Education and was ordained as lead pastor in a Mennonite Church. This lovely, rural congregation soon welcomed a river of refugees from Burma/Myanmar, who are now in leadership training themselves. When God clearly called me to step aside after nine wonderful years, I returned to chaplain work.

But, a great yearning soon took over my initial contentment in chaplain work. I knew this yearning had been within me for years and I found my way to Moravian Seminary to engage in the formative process of Spiritual Direction training. I finished in May, 2020, in awe of journeying with people who are now finding their way back to themselves, free of fear and full of courage. God continues to Nudge, Beacon and be Present.

When a person releases a grip on what held them steady in the past and reaches for a new way of seeing and being in the world, there is always some sort of drag, resistance. A Spiritual Director is necessary as a companion through life changes, until the old and the new are reconciled, and YOU find YOURSELF in surprising places. You will never regret the journey forward.