Where's Fabio when you need him?

Yesterday we kicked off the new year by signing papers to put our house on the market.

Last night I kicked off the first night of the new year by not sleeping.

Coincidence? I think not.

It's amazing how much time in the change-of-call process is taken up by the gritty details of reality. You want to believe (or I do, anyway) that this will be a follow-the-star, sense-God's-voice, leap-out-in-faith kind of thing, but in fact, it's a lot less romantic than that. It reminds me of the first Christmas Beloved and I had as a married couple (keep in mind that we had been married about a month), when we went out to choose our Christmas tree and put it up. I had a very Barbara-Cartland idea about this, the sort of swoony romantic scene featured in the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter commericals (though Fabio-free), wherein we would tromp through the snow and choose the perfect tree, come home and put it in the perfect place, drink perfect cups of hot cider, and then decorate our perfect tree with all our perfect ornaments.

Now how could that idea possibly have gone bad? Instead, we ended up bickering over which tree, and then over where it should be placed in the house and how to move the furniture to accommodate the tree, and at some point I remember sitting dejectedly on the floor thinking to myself, "This is not how I thought this would happen." On a side note, all further Christmases have gone much more smoothly.

THIS SHOULD BE EASIER is the theme of my fall and winter. It should be more romantic - sensing God's call to a new ministry, leaving gracefully a place I love, throwing myself faithfully into the future without precise directions. Also, there should maybe be some applause.

Instead, it looks much more like finding your spouse a job, working like a crazy person to fix up the house for sale, spending most of your post-Christmas "vacation" house hunting in the new town, deciding not to buy the great-deal flannel sheets at Macy's because it's just one more thing you'll have to pack, flailing desperately to get someone else to chair the worship committee for the synod assembly in April, realizing you have to sort through your entire office within a month which makes you want to THROW UP, putting up with all your kindhearted parishioners and their kindhearted suggestions that "now you'll have time to have a baby" because you'll be an associate, and hoping against hope that your house will sell in a sluggish market.

This is not romantic. Fabio is nowhere to be found. The good news, on the days I have the heart to see it, is that disillusionment is practically the theme of the entire bible. Almost no one signed up for what they got, or got what they signed up for. And yet God remained faithful through it all. The key is remembering that on this side of the journey, not just when you get to the promised land. Although remembering it once you get there seems to have been a bit of a problem too.

Lord God, you have called us, your servants, to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Somebody remind me to pray that every day.