One word

One word...

Awesome.

Now I await the result. They suggest you debrief with someone, not sure here is the place to do it, good friend and lots of coffee I think. Here is where I become a critic of my own presentation, which was about E Church and decide that however great you lot out there are, I can't get a hug from my lap-top.

I will say I met some fantastic people who will leave their indelible impressions, ink in many colours: the startling bright - a bullet-proof vest and a mission in Kosovo, serious passion: how much do we martyr ourselves for our faith? What does martyrdom mean? When is it not what Jesus intends? When does it have integrity? Where's the martyrdom in the everyday and the mundane?

The gentle pastel - the glow, the calm presence of Ray, his sensitivities, his inspired movements between the secular and the sacred because God makes the secular sacred.

Caroline - a strong colour, vivid and definite. One you can't help but notice and want to absorb, one to bask in so that it might become a part of your palette too, creative and intelligent - 'spirit charged brain cells' and so funny - alternative, able to see the other and bring joy in laughter.

Kate - bright and definite, daring - so real, vivacious - connected with the world, on the ball, setting everyone at ease.

Ian - iridescent - moved and moving others, simmering passion spilling over. A heart for youth and those without a space. ... and I could go on...

So many different shades, God's creative power - to make us all so unique and able to bring our particular gift to the table as an offering.

I feel a little like a towel that has been dropped in the bath (I've done that) and has then been wrung out. I feel like I've just given birth! Weird! Exhausted but so happy and a little changed, not the same as I was before. Something difficult and wonderful ahead to nourish but not sure into what shape it will grow; out of control a little but firmly resting in my Father's hand, nursed. Crying in the night, not a baby, but me. I had very vivid dreams, crying about leaving friends and having to say good-bye.

God brought me full circle so what is beyond the circle is just an added extra. You see God got my attention with 1 Timothy a few years ago. He shouted, hey, I'm so here, what are you going to do about me? I will give you rest and make you restless, sing to me, I'm listening, shout if you want, I can take it, so I did!

He took me to Rev 21. I heard the call, eternal life, his purposes, his 'it will all be okay' - tell others, tell others about my son.

So when I went to 'church' an hour after I landed (that's how it felt a little, back home, off the motorway from selection conference at Ely), he presented me and with 2 Timothy and Rev and I gulped for this time he showed me, and all the other people at our meeting through the speaker, American and passionate, the crowns we inherit and what we do to stay in the race which is actually a marathon. So yes, it's a marathon - the roller-coaster slows, in fact in some ways it's stopped until I get my result and I'm collecting myself, straightening my clothes and breathing again but not getting off just yet until I receive the next commissioning, then I'll put my trainers on and start to gently jog towards whatever horizon God is leading me.

***

They got the lot those advisers, heaven help them! I spilled big time, it was all on display, nothing held back. God was so good and faithful to me, giving me the words so that the result is his and his alone. The words he gave me were either because he wants me to communicate that what lives in me is not what is needed for ordained ministry or that what lives in me is what is needed for ordained ministry. I don't think there is any half-way. My DDO said it was likely to be a definite yes or no and not a half-way house. So I will wait. God knows (as do the advisers at this point, who stayed an extra 24 hours because they need to come to a unanimous decision about each of us). I am the one left unknowing!!

So glad to now be the other side of 'it', whatever the 'it' turns out to be...