What an amazing Holy Week at Amberlea! Beginning with our Community Easter Event, followed the next day with Palm Sunday. On Friday we gathered for a powerful Good Friday service, and then on Sunday, we had wonderful celebration, complete with bubbles, easter eggs, puppets and powerful music! Throughout Holy Week we had the privilege of walking the Prayer Labyrinth in the Fellowship Hall. I say privilege because my very first experience on that exact mat, was — at the risk of sounding dramatic — life changing.

It was almost 20 years ago, before beginning my studies at Knox College at the compulsory Guidance Conference for all Presbyterian Church in Canada potential ministerial candidates (whew, that was a mouthful ;). I remember it like yesterday. I really wasn’t quite sure why I was there. I didn’t want to be a pastor, and yet circumstances, and encouragement from others had led me to this place. A Master of Divinity degree? Me? I remember feeling very alone and very confused when I found myself in a room where the gigantic Prayer Labyrinth was laid out on the floor. The purpose was to focus on prayer as you walk on the blue path that lay before you.

“How hard could this be?” I thought.

I stood at the edge of the mat, kicked off my shoes and began the walk. I wasn’t very far along when I began to feel rather anxious and even panicked. I could see the centre of the mat – which was a large blue circle – but I had no idea how to get there. I remember having a conversation with myself about how “…this was so stupid…” and “… no one was forcing me to stay on this mat and no one would know if I jumped off…” (which, by the way I was tempted to do). As I was having this conversation with myself, however, I kept my eyes on the path and kept walking and the next thing I knew I was standing in the centre of the labyrinth. Having arrived in the centre with bold blue lines swirling all around me, I fell to my knees and began to cry. I called out to God saying, “I don’t get why I am here. I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t want to be a pastor. I can’t see me doing that. I am not gifted that way. What do you want me to do? Tell me! What do you want me to do????”

And then it became very clear. The whole walking-on-the-labyrinth was like my life. It was as though God was saying to me, “I have set the path before you. Walk in obedience. Don’t worry about the end. I know what it is even though you don’t and that is OK. Just be obedient and walk. This may not be the plan you have, but this is My plan and I will reveal the plan in MY time”.

At that moment all the anxiety I had felt before was lifted. I knew that I had to prayerfully and obediently walk the path before me even though I wasn’t quite sure where the path was leading and what the end would look like.

Now with the benefit of hindsight, I can honestly say the journey, though not always easy, has been amazing, particularly because it brought me to you —to Amberlea.

God has a plan and a calling on each of our lives. Take the time to stop and listen. Here’s the thing, you don’t have to walk a laybrinth to hear the heart of God. And don’t be afraid to listen, for fear of what you might hear. God may not be calling you to something big that uproots your life, it might be something small that has big, maybe even huge impact. Like,

Text your wayward kid that you love them.
Stop self-medicating.
Call your mother.

Or maybe God is calling you to something bigger.

Go back to school
Start a business or a not-for-profit
Give back generously

Our response to God’s leading is an act of obedience and faith. Oh, and just wait for the outcome — I promise, in hindsight, walking the path God lays before you will be worth it.

What is God calling you to do?