This Is My Story - To Be Continued...

Recently, I was reviewing the requirements to apply for CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) and one of them is to attach a copy of my spiritual autobiography. Over the last few years since entering the ordination process, I have had to write multiple iterations of this story, so I pulled up the last copy and I read through it. By the time that I got to the end, I was in tears… My heart was open and my soul was stirred. Not because of the events of the story, but because all of the events that I described are a part of the past tense version of the story, and I have not just survived; I have moved through them and there is so much more of the story that has unfolded since I last hit print and attached a copy to an application. I have become more of the person that I was always becoming and still there is more of the journey and more of the story ahead of me.

I realized that the stories of our lives are not a finite description of our life experiences, it is a continuum. I am a soul in evolution. We are souls on the move. This morning as I write this, I am different from the person I was when I fell asleep last night. I move forward through and beyond my circumstance. I grow, I change, I evolve, I live, I learn, I AM. Truth is; I am more than my story. This has always been the case; I just did not see it that way. There is more to all of us than what can be captured between once upon a time and happily ever after. There is so much more. My story used to confine me and I thought that I could not break free. That is no longer the case, today I am freer than ever because the story of what was is too small of a box to live and minister from. I stand shaped by the blessings of the past, embraced by the power of the now moment and with the heart of a dreamer and the soul of a visionary; I look toward the future.

Today, I turn the page and pick up a new pen and tell a new story that does not dismiss overcoming the things that people said I could not do, today my life is filled with people who support the journey of what I can do and who I was born to be. Today, I live in the land of Yes I can, because that is what’s in me to do. This is a part of my soul’s purpose in this life.

My life is more than just a story that is captured in words on a page; today my life is set to a different beat that comprises a new song and a new way of being more of me.

For today, this is my story and with each passing moment; it is to be continued…