Have I Had an Epiphany? Have You?
Wednesday January, 6th was the official day of Epiphany. The day Western Christians traditionally celebrate that the Maji came to gifts to the baby Jesus whom they believed to be the promised messiah from the Hebrew scriptures. This Sunday, January 10th our church will celebrate, for the second year, Epiphany Sunday by handing out Epiphany Stars with words on them.
Words like: kindness, stability, forgiveness, thoughtfulness, service, conviction, education, intelligence, and renewal will be written on the stars. Each person present at worship will be given a star and everybody is welcome to pick up a star during the week or during worship for the next several Sundays.
During worship we're going to be sharing our stories from 2015. Hopefully some stories will be shared from the words we received last year.
I know my word has been a bit of a head scratcher, "truthfulness". I certainly think of myself as a truthful person as I highly value honesty to others as well as honesty and truthfulness to myself as well. I've done my best to be truthful to myself as that is often the harder challenge than being truthful with others. It's so easy to decieve ourselves, but it is so important to make honest assessments of who we are and who we are becoming. Though this is not a new realization to me, it was strongly reinforced in 2015.
In 2015 I joined the Company of New Pastors and continued meeting with my mentor and I took a hard look in the mirror. I
realized my need to seek personal and pastoral growth. Again, not a new concept or realization, but I did realize I had fallen into bad habits of seeking spiritual growth and sustenance on my own.
Thank God for the community of faith which has upheld me during a challenging and fulfilling 2015! We are not alone! That is my 2015 Epiphany. What is your's?
2016 is here, I am confident that it will hold new learnings and a new epiphany for myself and for you too.
