Preparing to go!

Excitement is building as we scurry around campus with last minute details, printing boarding passes, downloading good music, books and movies for our plane ride ahead. Each of us have our own desires and expectations as we embark on this adventure to the Holy Land and we are bringing “all” of ourselves along.

Open to the Holy Spirit and where she moves, I feel the complexities of all that I am longing to know my God, my Christ more intimately; desiring also to see through our Mother’s eyes and know the sufferings and joy of her heart along the way. Here I am, an insignificant soul a midst the vastness of the world’s possibilities. I am a spirit, a mother, a wife, a seminarian, a servant of our most high God marked by experience, branded by genetics open to the love and will of our Savior. In this moment I feel so small yet so deeply loved and full of appreciation for all those who have made this journey for me, for us, possible. To all of you I have the responsibility to fulfill my promise and study, and learn and grow.

The further I study the theology of trauma the more I recognize that our identity as a spiritual people, as a Christian people, lay at the center of our pastoral application to those who suffer, to those who seek, to all of those in need. So is there really any better way to deepen my knowledge, faith and practice than to go back to our roots and touch the earth that our Lord once felt on the bareness of his skin. It would seem to me that there is no better way to come to my identity in Christ more thouroghly than on this journey.

Yesterday, I heard testimony to the transformation that has worked it’s way through me and still I hear in those around me, how this trip will further transform my very being. Even the woman at the Target cash register expressed her excitement for me with, “Oh how you will be transformed.” I didn’t know her, but she doesn’t stand alone. Her sentiments were repeated a number of times to me and oh, how I am embracing each moment.

Many of you have asked for me to keep this journal and post pics. I carry each of you in my heart and in my prayers. I pray you will take a moment from time to time and check in as I post pics, thoughts and daily adventures from us all.

Blessings and Love to each and everyone.

Allison