Page 3 - Glory & Grace Issue 5: Thresholds

the door of the unknown
While a large table full of appetizing options can elicit excitement of what will be, when it comes to our lives the sheer number of choices available can feel paralyzing. How do you choose which door to open? To whose wisdom should you listen? Which thresholds should not be traversed and which ones, upon crossing, change everything in the most wonderful way?
Similar to a table of rich foods, life lays out all kinds of "doors of opportunity" or "threshold moments," but ultimately we make the decisions about what ends up on our plate. Author Jan Richardson notes, "whether we arrive at these between-places by design, by accident, or by the choices that others have made for us, the threshold can be a place of wonders. It can also be chaotic, discombobulating, and even terrifying."
A devotion written by ELCA Deaconess Sister Michelle Walka recently caught my attention. Perhaps in this excerpt (used by permission) you will be encouraged for your next "threshold moment."
...It has been such a long and hard season filled with “what if’s.” A season of unknowns, grief, weariness, and many things out of our control...And yet, in the midst of all these “what if’s” we are confronted with another: What if it all works out? This question offers a different invitation. An invitation to greet hope at the door of the unknown. This is a threshold question. The space between what is present and what is to come...and so we enter into this mysterious space of wonder and hope, saying yes to the sacred journey. Not because we know the way or even the direction, but because God’s voice of love beckons us.
In this issue of we're
thankful for those who agreed to share their encounters with doors of opportunity, difficult choices, and "threshold moments" in their lives. We hope that these stories might encourage you to "greet hope at the door of the unknown," trusting that God accompanies us through all of life and that God's voice of love beckons us even across the threshold of the door of the unknown.
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Pastor Jen + Pastor Ben
A threshold is a "between-place when we have left something that was familiar—a place, a person, a job, a way of being— but the way ahead has not become clear.” Jan Richardson, author