Finding Our Way Together in Christ

I must have looked at that picture thousands of times. It hung on the wall in the nursery. A small barefoot child wearing a straw hat and overalls is heading down a dirt road. The provisions for the journey are tied in a bundle hanging from the stick slung over the tiny `shoulder. The inscription read “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way!” Years later in the office there was another picture that regularly drew my attention. Inscribed below a becalmed sailboat on the misty edge of a seemingly endless fog bank were the words: “Why be anxious about the future? God is already there.” Although I have no idea where those pictures are now, their shared message lingers even as I write. The call to start this blog began months ago. Amy and I have wondered about and had numerous wandering conversations about title, format, even the focus of the message. Finally we said, "just start!" So we sat in the coffee shop in Sandusky for hours, and wrote. 

Pamela

As we included this page, "Finding Our Way Together in Christ" we wanted readers to know that we have no idea where this journey will take us only that we have a deep desire to travel it together, along parallel paths that will hopefully converge again at some point on the horizon line.  Jesus is the horizon and he is drawing us toward himself in love and mercy.  Pamela and I are what Anne of Green Gables would call "kindred spirits."  We have the kind of friendship that has emerged out of a passion for Christ and yet from the very beginning there was some spark between us. . . something that said to each of us individually that we needed to work together, to talk and pray together, to discern what God is up to in the church and in the world together.  We bring different things to one another. . . she brings a keen insight into my soul, often pinning me down where I most resist pinning!  And I pull her out of near plunges in the Lake water when she whispers, "I think I need some help."  That's a little bit about us. . . tell us who you are and how you are finding your way "together with others" who may or may not share your denominational affiliation but who share your love for Christ and his good news.  

Amy

I remember the day Amy pulled me from plunging into the Lake. We had arrived to our home port after a magnificent day of sailing.  As we were docking, I was managing the lines, and I had one foot on the dock and the other on the boat.  The wind began to push the boat away from the dock, and my foot caught on the "safety line" on the boat.  I ended up in the water between the dock and the boat, hanging onto the boat's edge.  I wasn't frightened.... I simply wasn't strong enough to regain footing on either the boat or the dock.  I said, (quite calmly, Amy says) "I think I need some help."  She is younger and more agile than I am, and she had both feet on the boat.  She literally lifted me back onto the craft!  


I think God does call folks of differing abilities to serve each other from one's gifts and strengths.   But that can only happen if the other is able to say (or show) that there is an awareness of "I think I need some help."  


Although I do find it fairly easy to ask God for help, I admit that I am not always aware of situations when I need to ask for help that is God's love in the hands or the voice or the presence of another person.  


Especially in ministry, and especially when we are on different paths of denominational affiliation, we may be tempted to withhold our utterance:  "I think I need some help." 
Pamela