Personal Saints

Last week was All Saints Sunday. During our worship service, we remembered two of our beloved members who have passed into the more immediate presence of our Lord this past year. They were members of our church family who shaped and influenced many in our Church (Our Saviour’s Lutheran-Welcome) and outside of the church in their everyday life. They both supported me in my first year of ministry at Our Saviour’s.

During our All Saints service, also talked about personal saints. The people in our lives, both deceased and alive, who have lifted and held us up when we needed to be, who loved us even when we didn’t love ourselves and walked with us as we learned what it is life to be a child of God’s.

As I preached on this sacred Sunday, I was reminded of my personal saints. Being a survivor of Child Abuse and Neglect, there were very few personal saints that helped form my faith. There were some that helped me stay close to God and to cling to the fact that I was a child of God and God loved me unconditionally. Remarkably, I was able to hold onto that fact and my faith grew. Grew to the point that I accepted a call to ministry and have served as a pastor for 27 years. It also helped me want to have pastor’s know how to be with children who have or are experiencing abuse of neglect. Hence, my journey to Hood Theological Seminary to get my doctorate.

Since those few childhood personal saints, I’ve been blessed beyond measure with personal saints to help me become the person I am today. These people helped encourage me when they saw potential in me that I could not see for myself. Others shared with me love, that I did not know ever existed or was even worthy of. Some continued to help my faith grow and further my ability to continue to say yes to the call of God to be in ordained pastor (because let us be real it mostly is a blessing however it can be so hard at times also).

When I accepted the call to Our Saviour’s Lutheran in Welcome, NC I made a liturgical stole for myself. Green because it is the color of the liturgical calendar that we use the most. On the back of my stole are signatures, sayings, blessings from a few of my personal saints. Sadly some of my saints were not able to be in the vacinity to sign it or have passed into the immediate presence of our Lord. I wear this stole frequently and know that these people are cheering me on, holding me up, wrapping their arms around me, and encouraging and shaping my faith. For my saints I say thank you – and those words are not adequate yet the ones that I can think of right now. You are amazing!

A few – ok a lot – of pictures of my stole along with some of the saints or things that are reminders of the saints. And other saints that I can’t believe I don’t have pictures of. Some folks are in several that’s because some times for me it is very hard for me to pick one. As an aside, if someone’s head seems to be cut off, click on the picture and you and see the whole picture.