Ordination: A New Work Begun and a Good Work Continued

In one month, I will be ordained as an elder in the United Methodist Church. Not much else in this life has felt as simultaneously joyful and weighty to me. As I pray towards that day, it seems important to mark down my thoughts, to slow down and step back and reflect as I approach a day I have been praying for and striving towards for nearly seventeen years. 

After some searching for and dusting off this blog space I created several years ago and have returned to time from time...I have settled on this forum as the place to record these thoughts and to share them as a way to invite others to join me in prayer over the next month and the days, years, and seasons to follow. 

At the ordination service, the bishop will lay hands on my head and pray "Almighty God, pour upon Amanda the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a elder in Christ's holy church." On at least three other days, hands have been laid on my head as someone prayed for the Holy Spirit to work in me or to be poured out on me -- the day I was baptized, the day I was confirmed, and the day I was commissioned as a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church. All of these days are special and sacred to me, yet my heart has been drawn in a special way to my baptism during my journey to ordination. 

On the day I was baptized, these words of love and promise were prayed over me by my grandfather, "Amanda Laura-Leigh, the Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ." Several years ago as I was going through family photo albums, a found a picture of my mother holding me on her lap on the garden bench outside of the first home I lived in. Written on the back of the photograph was "Amanda's baptism -- February 12, 1989." Though I had heard stories about my baptism, had seen the pictures of family gathered from near and far, had celebrated and remembered it throughout the years, I had never known the exact date. Grabbing my phone, I set a calendar notification to alert me every year at 9:00 am on February 12 to "Remember my baptism, and be thankful."

When I walked into the sunroom at Lakeshore Camp and Retreat Center at 8:55 for worship before the interviews began on a February morning in West Tennessee (which is to say I don't remember if was cold or warm or inbetween), I was a tightly wound knot of mixed emotions -- nervousness, excitement, doubt, confidence, insecurity, anxiety -- as anyone would expect. I was excited to see my friends, both the other candidates for ordination and the members of the Board of Ordained Ministry. I was anxious to get started, so that I would just know what the answer would be. Like I had told my congregations the Sunday before, there were two possible outcomes for my interview, a good one and a better one. The good one would be a "Not yet;" the better one a "Yes!" As I settled in next to friends, began to lift my voice in songs of praise with others already seated, and waited for the rest of the group to shuffle in, a panicked thought flashed across my mind. Had I silenced my cell phone? And if I had, had I also turned it onto airplane mode so my decrepit iPhone battery wouldn't deplete itself searching for a none to be had at camp cell signal? Reaching for my purse, my eye caught a notification on my home screen, a calendar alert set for 9:00 am on February 12th..."Remember your baptism, and be thankful." And a peace that passes understanding, a peace that drinks deeply from the waters of grace and joy, a peace that I needed in that moment settled over my soul.

On that day in 1989, I was baptized. I was claimed by grace. I was named a beloved child of God.

Thirty years later on that day, the Board of Ordained Ministry recommended me to be ordained as an elder in the United Methodist Church at the 2019 Memphis Annual Conference.

I am overwhelmed by the love and grace that had been shown to me. I am overjoyed to join my friends and colleagues in ministry in full connection, upon the approval and vote of the clergy session in June. I am humbled 

that others believe and have confidence in me. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have only arrived at this moment with the love, support, encouragement, and intention poured into me by so many throughout my life. 

I am most overcome by the awareness that those words prayed over me at my baptism are both blooming and being planted in my heart again, "Amanda Laura-Leigh, the Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ."

So thank you, community, for walking and praying with me this far. May we continue together to follow where the Spirit leads.