What about me?

When I was a little girl, I had a bit of a “what about me?” issue. Although I was too shy to speak up and ask for things, I silently felt sorry for myself when I didn’t get them. One night at a family gathering, my uncle found me crying beside a table of souvenirs they had brought home from their travels. It sounds silly now, but I had imagined that the gifts were for everyone but me. To my surprise, my uncle responded: “of course you can have one of these souvenirs.”

Many years later, I felt the same way about God’s Holy Spirit. I saw what others were receiving, and my mind automatically thought: “what about me?” To my surprise, God replied in a way that changed my life (that’s another story).

The Holy Spirit is renewing people and congregations in the LCA and giving them new understandings of their part in God’s mission. For example, the LCA website’s feature stories has a recent example how a small church in New Zealand reached out to its community and found a new sense of purpose in the process.

When you hear about missional renewal that is occurring elsewhere, do you ask “what about me?” As if God doesn’t love you enough to bless you in this way? That doesn’t sound like something our God of grace would do, does it? Perhaps something is already underway, but you don’t recognise it? Perhaps it doesn’t look like it did last time something new happened. And because of that, it feels like it must be wrong.

I pray that this advent, Christmas and New Year time will be one of refreshment for you; a time to remember God’s abundant love, to pray, dream, hope and notice what God is doing in your life and community. And as we take a break as the M&M team, we look forward to returning mid-January, hearing about what you are noticing about where God is already working – in your life, in your Christian community, in your world – and supporting you in 2020 as we are able.