This year, as I prepare for the holidays, I admittedly am a little more introspective in creating what feels more like an inventory of my life than anything else I can muster to describe. Maybe it is always this reflective, but after a full twelve months, I have forgotten some of this feeling from years before. We’ll move into a 2019 year in review next week, but this week, I am just sitting with this feeling.

I used to be involved in The Church, and even made a career of it for a period. I loved working with families and feeling like I was serving something with purpose. However, as of the last few years, I have stepped away from that lifestyle. There is probably a few novels on the reasoning behind that subject, but I will keep this brief and save those for another day or outlet.

At it’s best, The Church provided me with a feeling of presence. That the way I lived was carved out as the path that I was chosen to walk. Not alone, but beside fellow explorers on their own journeys. That our paths may cross for a period of time only to be determined by a higher power as we work to find divine truths for our lives. And that the same higher power be the guiding force of our actions.

And so, I am no stranger to following a call to something. For awhile it was Youth Ministry. Then, it became Communications.

Moving from one professional field to another can be a really daunting task. Transitions as such are usually abrupt in my experience. Ultimately, it can be easy to fall into the mindset that what we currently “do” is all that we are talented at;

There can be so much identity invested in our job titles.

With a change between industries, there is a tendency to want to grasp onto familiarities that can fall short of anything other than just learning the ropes ourselves. Sometimes, buckling down means micromanaging our lives from a place of relentless self accountability. Yet it’s those moments that really help to be able to reach out to know we aren’t alone. To evaluate one’s risks and rewards and what it takes to establish new roots.

St. Martin’s Episcopal of Houston has been a place that I have on multiple occasions reached out to during such transitions. First, when I stepped into youth ministry as a Youth Ministry Intern circa 2007, and then as a Communications Intern circa 2013.

During the first experience, I was brought on by a team of talented and caring folks who taught me much about “the ropes” of interpersonal relationship building and dreaming big/executing accordingly. We accomplished some amazing things in that year, and overcame some big obstacles in the process.

My second experience was a move into the Communications side, for which I too am grateful. I learned a great deal about putting in work and paying my dues during that season. In retrospect, there are hopes that I didn’t quite get to fulfill in my time there the second go around, but I feel as though sometimes the lesson arrives well after the experience.

I bring all this up as I walk through this time of year in reflection. To realign myself to some of those bigger dreams, using the talents I have been given to exercise that vision.

Pedro The Lion is the brainchild of David Bazan, who candidly croons the hymn “Be thou my vision”, a restful tempo and beautiful sentiment. I could think of very few things more appropriate for where I land this week.

I am still trying to figure out this path. But I think we all are, even in our respective journey’s.

Let’s learn from the leaps we have made and grow in the knowledge that we share. Peace to you this holiday.