It’s Sunday morning again. It’s Sunday morning and I am very aware of it. It’s Sunday morning and it is finally not only grief that dawns. For so long, there has been a sadness that has come with a Sunday morning sunrise.

Though there are no duties associated with this day anymore, that loss has been heavy. Though there are still places where people gather, I notice the weight of the lack of community in this time and space of the week more often than most others.

This Sunday feels a bit different… and I’m not fully sure why. Maybe it is the space in my heart that has been growing with the steady presence of those who truly want to deeply know and be known. Maybe it is the beauty that comes with the darkening sky of my time in ministry with the spiritual family of origin into which I always hoped I would really fit someday.

As the sun sets on another chapter in life even as so many new things are dawning, it seems to be important to hold space for those who have already crossed into the morning after they are no longer pastors, and those for whom the sky is just beginning to grow dim.

Wherever you find yourself this morning, whether filling a pulpit or sleeping in, whether sitting in a pew or at the table drinking coffee. Whether you are so far away from home that you don’t even know it’s morning there or down the street from the place you once served…

I see you, friend. I see the pain in your eyes, I can feel the reluctant relief, I identify with the questions that still come up about who and when and where you might ever be able to serve again... let alone where you are now.

If you are, like I am, still working out what the call looks like to live out when the church would rather deny it… don’t give up.

I am holding onto hope for you. I am believing and walking with you and for you as you keep moving forward. And if the moving forward looks like calmly waiting in this season, I sit quietly in my heart with you and for you.

Thank you for your courage to lean into the hard and holy work of healthier living than was handed down to you. Be gentle with yourself as you continue discovering both the costs and the benefits to doing so. You are changing the world for the better, and I am thankful for you.

I love you.

To those who may be glad to see me “out of the way”… I pray you will come to know grace like you have never experienced, that you will never understand how painful it is to be cast aside becauset you will not choose dollars over people, and that you encounter holiness in its purest form which can only lead to a transformation that finally teaches you to live live out loud.

This has not been the way, family… but it’s not too late to choose better.

I love you.

To everyone else… who is just confused or has stuck through this long post but isn’t sure why… thank you. I am so very well aware that my brain puts words together in ways that can be exhausting to some. You, who stuck with me, who encourage me, who believe in me, who have held onto hope for me… you have loved me back to life. And now I get to live.

I love you.