Giving Thanks for Pieces of Me
After one year, Heartbeat Formation, LLC continues to offer spiritual direction and soul care. As the creator and spiritual director of the practice, I am not celebrating one year but giving thanks.
Giving thanks expresses my gratitude and appreciation for what is happening in the right now moments of Heartbeat Formation, LLC, and me. I am giving thanks because I have invested myself in the art and craft of spiritual direction, deepening my identity and sense of confidence as a spiritual guide in one-on-one and group sessions, WORDshops and webinars, contemplative preaching, and writing.
The right now moments, paraphrased from Toni Morrison's character Sixo in Beloved, are "the pieces I am," that the Lord gathered and "gave back to me in all the right order."
In July 2023, I bid farewell to the spiritual directees who accompanied me on my two-year spiritual direction training journey. We listened for an hour once a month, and together, we witnessed each other's spiritual formation, shape, and form, taking more risks and trusting God with the impossible. Together, we learned to play; playing is not always easy, just like starting a spiritual direction practice and promoting yourself. Both take a big leap.
Photo by Ben Hershey and chris liu on Unsplash
Play requires us to spend time doing something enjoyable or amusing, perhaps an exercise or activity. Play is not being or taking ourselves so seriously. Play is to move freely. Play is purpose. I agree with Kirk Byron Jones who explains play this way in his book Holy Play: The Joyful Adventure of Unleashing your Divine Purpose: "God's ultimate will for all of us is to play and soar in excited freedom and holy abandonment. …Living your purpose more freely and expansively causes your heart—and God's— to sing."
When I think of “living my purpose more freely and expansively” Isaiah 30:19-21 merges as my heart song. The awareness that the Lord will give “bread of adversity and water of affliction” yet the Lord will be present, and I will be in the Lord’s presence. The Lord will hear my doubts, fears, woes and uncertainties. Nevertheless, when I turn to the left or to the right, I will hear a word from behind me saying, “This is the way walk in it.” I’ve learned to trust that word and walk with happily and freely.
I launched Heartbeat Formation, LLC, after two years of discerning the next steps, with God-confidence. A leap of faith. I admit I waffled. Was I enough? Had the Lord, truly called me on this path? How many rejections would I face. I did it anyway. I did what God had inspired me to do: "Be free and move forward with my life in exciting and new ways." I believe God calls us to play, imagine, and create. I walked with holy abandonment, freedom and excitement that God had called me to the ministry of spiritual direction.
I can only imagine this is why the Samaritan leper turned back and came back after Jesus's healing in the gospel of Luke. Luke tells us ten lepers asked for "mercy." Each healed. One noticed his healing, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, prostrated himself at Jesus's feet and thanked him" (17:11-19 NRSV).
Giving thanks for the right now healing outweighs a celebration. Angela pauses to give thanks for one year in the art, business, profession, and ministry of spiritual direction.
Rejection is not easy. When we've been rejected for whatever reason, when God sees us and heals us by gathering and giving us back those pieces of ourselves in all the right order, giving thanks for the right now healing outweighs a celebration. After all, we can celebrate without giving thanks. I know rejection. I know what it feels like to live on the margins, to not fit in. Perhaps you do, too.
Starting a practice and promoting yourself takes a big leap. It is both a gift and an investment—dare I say, a healing. For me, it was shifting my previous life—writer, professor, workshop leader—into spiritual direction. It was a spiritual alignment shift that was not about me but the Spirit of God working through me and me, willing to play, puzzling together all the pieces of me—daughter, sister, niece, mother, wife, neighbor, minister, and friend.
I discovered the shift listening to Scott McRae's webinar "The 4 Phases of Spiritual Direction Practice, Mapping Where You Are and Where You Want To Be" hosted by SDI (Spiritual Directors International). In one year, I have shifted from second-guessing to confidence, mental exertions to receiving inspiration, and from anxious strivings to entrustment. The year had been exciting and overwhelming, first about me, then and now, not about me at all. The practice was happening "through me." McRae defined this mindset as "an inspired alignment, presence-based, inter-connected, expansive, generative, being-based." According to his chart of the 4 Phase Dynamics, I related to my practice, Heartbeat Formation, LLC, as a spiritual form separate from me. I listened to how Spirit wanted to work through me and my practice. I had surrendered my practice and expressed gratitude for the work. I believed this was the way, so I walked in it.
Since launching the practice, Heartbeat Formation, LLC has facilitated a webinar, a 4-week workshop, two WORDshops, two small group listening sessions (one in person), offered eleven free sessions and seventeen one-hour sessions, and created and presented a poster at 2024 Space for Grace Conference. As a contemplative preacher and writer, I have delivered eight sermons to three congregations, a conference paper in Iceland about spirituality, and diary writing. I am excited about a forthcoming perspective piece in Spiritus Journal. Heartbeat Formation, LLC has also published five e-newsletters, Heart Matters, 100 social media posts, and one Vimeo recording, "What's this thing called Spiritual Direction?"
I am giving thanks, turning back to the Lord, and saying thank you for one year of being in the practice, the business, and the ministry of spiritual direction and soul care. I am giving thanks, turning back to the Lord, and saying thank you for all the people God has sent and is sending to join me in this spiritual practice, Heartbeat Formation, LLC.
If I may, I wonder what pieces of you are giving thanks for God’s mercy?
