Thoughts

​    I woke up early this morning and this memory popped up. It is a hot Sacramento foothill June morning. I am a teenager and have slept well into a Saturday morning after a night of babysitting that didn’t end until well after 2:00 am. Our mum has been busy all morning doing the weekly wash. Outside my open bedroom window, I hear the gurgle of gray water plopping out an open pipe into the garden. This pipe was probably a code violation even back then, yet it watered the flower bed beneath the bedroom window for well over a decade until the plumbing was replaced. This garden had camellia bushes, roses and at the front, two large hydrangeas. The camellias and roses bloomed the same color annually yet the hydrangeas had a party every time mum changed laundry detergents. The residue of the detergent in the gray water affected the Ph balance of the soil around the plants and depending on the nature of the detergent, the flowers varied from pale pink to deep blue violet. I have been reflecting on this memory all morning and it makes me think of my own baptism. It is in my relationship to Christ that I engage in the world, yet in the course of my own life, I have been transplanted to many places and the quality of the environment of each place has shaped the colors and tones of my own blooming. I am very much enjoying being the Bridge pastor at Christ the Good Shepherd. I like living into the depth of each day. I also am discerning, just as you are, what my next “call” will be. Inside my imagination there is a call committee that watches over me as I reflect on the places I have journeyed, the gifts God has given me and the dreams I still enjoy. How can I use my gifts? How am I different from who I was five years ago?  What is realistic yet risky to try even as I am aware of my aging process? How is the Spirit moving through me as I serve here? These are some of my discernment questions. As you seek a new pastor I pray for your discernment, in the same manner I ask you to pray for mine.

                                                                  -Pastor Jill