So how does it feel?

Last night, my friend asked me how it feels to finally be a pastor. I was quick to remind him I'm not quite a pastor...yet. A few days left to go... Nonetheless, it was an intriguing question. Amidst packing up the house in Dubuque, making plane reservations, packing suitcases for our trip out West, actually undertaking our trip out West, and arriving on the ground running headlong into a very full agenda, how it feels hadn't really occurred to me.

Others seem more impressed with this latest accomplishment than I. They remind me that I've been in school, either part-time or full-time, since January 2000...or is it January 2001?...nobody seems to remember. They remind me of the at-the-time drama of transferring schools after a stint in the South proved to be extreme culture shock for a liberal-tie dye wearin'-anything but traditional Pacific Northwest girl. Lots of upheaval, they say. Lots of challenge. Look at all I've overcome, they admire. My mentor pointed out to me that a lot of my firsts have been full of challenge and unexpected twists. Hopefully this trend won't carry over to first call.

I tend to meet these comments with a "hummmmm, hadn't really thought of it that way" response. Sure, at the time, these challenges were, well, challenging. Somehow, though, perhaps in a mad dash and attempt to maintain sanity, I've learned to make sense of it all. The experience in the South helped me understand what it's like to be a foreigner in a foreign land, and now, I can treasure the South and love it for what it is. Transferring schools provided me an opportunity to self-advocate as which-classes-there count for which-classes here discussions arose. I've learned a great deal about myself, like I tend to ask with the viewpoint that "if they don't want to do this, they'll say no" approach. Transferring schools was one of the wisest things I ever did, but I'm finally at a point where I can treasure the year of learning, pain, struggle and disillusionment that preceded it.

I suppose if there is anything that I feel I've overcome in the last 5 or 6 years, it would be the parenting of a special needs child and of his please-don't-make-him-a-lost-child brother. For me, the transformation that I've experienced from being Sony and Minky's mom is both my greatest accomplishment and greatest challenge. There have been many tearful times, many deserts of hopelessness, many oases of promise, many experiences of nearly every emotion and feeling on the spectrum. For me, this is my proudest, yet ongoing, accomplishment. The other stuff is all accessory, all on the sideline, all something I did while I've attempted to live into the realities of an ever-changing scenery known as motherhood.