How did I end up an Ordinand?

Preached on Palm Sunday this year; the last Sunday I was at Emmanuel prior to being in a placement church for 3 months.

I was not brought up as a church going Christian- we used to go once a year at Christmas. I had exposure to church once a month at church parade as a brownie and guide, and loved the Bible stories told to us by our primary school headmaster. And in primary school I also learnt to sing the Lord’s Prayer. At the age of 11 I was given a New Testament by the Gideon’s at school and vowed to read a bit every day, and I started to say a little prayer asking God to look after my family every night.

At 15, I attempted to go to the school Christian union twice but there were only 6 of us and 2 of those were teachers and I found it rather intense. I married in church- it was what you did… but there was something more than that there- I had a sense that saying my vows in front of God was very important, although I didn’t really know why.

Finally at the age of 24 I had my eldest son, Aidan and we felt it was important to get him Christened- again it was something you did and it never crossed our minds not too. Our own parish church at that time had a very bad name and so we decided to travel 30 minutes down the A38 to a small rural church that my husband had gone to as a child.

We also made a decision that we’d quite like our children to go to Sunday school as they wouldn’t learn about Jesus in the natural way we did at school. 22 months later, when I was 8 months pregnant with my daughter Tara, we got confirmed- we had been approached by the Vicar and were conscious that we were that the only ones who did not take communion- so it seemed reasonable that we took the next step.

During the confirmation service, the Bishop placed his hand on my head as we knelt in prayer I remember feeling a great warmth spread over me, unlike anything I had ever felt before and so I experienced the Holy Spirit within me for the first time. We carried on going to the church for another year but left in the end because the organist complained about Aidan toddling around and putting him off; there was no Sunday school and no other families. We were spending the whole service trying to keep our children quiet and no longer taking anything in.

But I actually missed going to church- something had changed within me and I still felt drawn to go but didn’t know which church to go to.

I didn’t go to church for 2 years, by which time I was pregnant again and I met a mum whose children went to Emmanuel Sunday School. So 21 years ago we started to come to here.

I remember the first time I asked to be prayed for, there were difficulties with my 3rd pregnancy and it wasn’t clear if all was well with my youngest, Kieran, and so I asked to be put on the prayer list. With Kieran’s birth, all was well and I believed God answered my prayer. We gave him an extra name of Sean, Irish for John, and meaning precious gift of God.

Over time I became more involved, the children loved coming and playing with their friends and learning about Jesus. We went to Spring Harvest a couple of times and I took up playing my flute again in the music group, doing readings and then finally intercessions- that was a big step for me because I’d often worried that I didn’t know how to pray. I learnt so much in those times of fellowship.

There came a point 13 years ago that I was feeling increasingly restless and felt that I should be doing more, perhaps some Christian study, so I tentatively approached David, our vicar at the time. To my surprise, he thought I should consider applying for 3 year reader training. I laughed as that wasn’t at all what I had in mind. I am an introvert; I couldn’t see me standing up and preaching, wearing robes and all that malarkey. My word, I wasn’t holy enough, I had the wrong accent, I didn’t know much! But eventually I said I’d speak to my husband and see what he thought about me being a Reader and if okay with it well then I’d just apply and see what happened. If it was meant to be, then it was meant to be.

Anyway he thought it was a good idea and so I applied, expecting to get rejected out of hand- but in fact, of course, I got accepted.

Throughout my 3 years of training, I still wondered if I had been called or if I was a fraud. On our final session, when we were being prepared for licensing at the cathedral, I was having doubts about my abilities, feeling completely unworthy; but there came a point towards the end of the day when I began to shake whilst singing a hymn – my whole body was warm from within and I found I had tears rolling down my face, even though I wasn’t aware I was crying. The warmth came in waves- and – it wasn’t just my age back then! One of the vicar’s leading us came up to me, put their hand on my shoulders and said they had a message they felt compelled to tell me- that they had seen I was to be a preacher and I felt this huge peace descend on me. It was only at that final session that I finally realised God had called me to be a Reader after all!

So I became a licensed reader 10 years ago, and I have loved it. I am passionate about Reader ministry- a foot in both camps so to speak- still within the laity- and never had any thoughts or feelings about anything else. This was where God wanted me to be. Well – it was…. But God is God- and if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that what I think about how things ought to be and what God thinks things for Dawn ought to be are usually completely different!

After about 3 years as a Reader, I was feeling restless again, I felt I was meant to be doing something else for God within my Reader ministry. Yet I had 3 children, a husband, worked full time, held a prayer group, led and preached but couldn’t do anymore because of these reasons.

I thought about Christian counselling, it seemed an obvious link to my nursing background, so I took myself off to St John’s College in Nottingham to find out about it. However it just wasn’t possible for me to do this because of time and money needed. That door was closed. A couple of years went on; I was still feeling restless so went to explore volunteering for the Samaritans. But the time commitment and requirement to work a lot of these hours as a night shift, again meant I just couldn’t do that with family, work and church. So I threw myself into work, which I have always been fortunate enough to enjoy. I was doing well and was put on the global talent programme where they were developing my leadership skills further.

Half way through this work programme, we went on holiday to France and on my daughter’s 19th birthday, my youngest son, Kieran, my precious gift from God, at the age of 16.5 drowned in the sea on our first day in the resort. It is thought he was caught in a rip current, he was found 3 days later when we identified him and a week later we returned home with his body.

I don’t want to dwell on this, many of you here knew and loved Kieran, who helped with Sunday school and rang the bell every week, which now stays silent most of the time.

But you see through suffering, I have understood that there have been many blessings. Not because of Kieran’s death but in spite of it. From the moment Kieran disappeared God was working through so many people to help us bear our pain. The texts, the prayers, the practical help- Graham, our priest in charge for instance, dealt with the press for us, arranged a memorial book here and somewhere for people to lay flowers, picking us up from Manchester airport, doing home communion with us, supporting our distressed family and church family at home; my sister and brother-in-law flew out to us in France and helped us deal with the legalities of repatriating Kieran home.

The Anglican Church across France had us in their prayers Bishop Alistair and Bishop Humphrey wrote to us, and of course everyone back here was praying and supporting us in so many ways. God working through so many people to carry us when we didn’t know how we would ever bear what had happened.

I have been there metaphorically on Good Friday hanging on the cross with Jesus crying out my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And I’ve been at the foot of the cross with Mary gazing at her dead son. And after a period of time; after the horror, in the numbness and waiting on my low Saturday; I have experienced resurrection, the hope and the joy and the peace and the assurance of God healing and blessing my family and me.

As you will have gathered- my calling this time has not occurred because of Kieran, but Kieran’s unexpected death and the days, weeks, months that followed were undoubtedly the catalyst that enabled spiritual growth, new insights, questions, feelings about God and my faith; and a desire; a burning desire to help be Christ’s light in the darkness for those experiencing horror and suffering, who are not loved as my son was loved.

18 months after Kieran’s death, my restlessness returned. But I had told God categorically, as you do!! That I was no longer seeking what he might want me to do. I didn’t have the strength, I needed to be still a while and if he needed me to do anything that it would have to be plain as day and just happen. I was done putting effort in trying to work out this restlessness.

I read a book on Ignatian spirituality and picked up my prayer life in more depth again. However, although restless, I had a new type of role and was studying again for work, my brain was fully occupied! But one morning I awoke from a dream. I don’t remember the content of the dream. I just remember feeling different. I walked my dogs, came back, read my bible passage and sat quietly as was normal for me before switching on my work computer. I don’t remember what I read; I just remember the feeling from the dream was still with me, something had changed I me but I didn’t know what.

In the quiet, as I was trying to read, the word ordination came into my mind from nowhere like a lightning bolt, such that it interrupted my reading. I didn’t know why it had come unbidden into my mind. I had always been anti- ordination before. I used to get quite cross in fact, at readers who seemed to use reader ministry, to my mind, as a stepping stone, which it isn’t. It’s a ministry in its own right. I love reader ministry and it always perfectly sat with me. I had never seen a reason to be ordained, never considered it, other than in a very dismissive way…..

And yet- here was the word ordination. I inwardly searched for my usual feelings of irritability and dismissal … but I couldn’t find them. The anti-ordination irritation wasn’t there. I searched for it, confused. I couldn’t make sense of this and put it down to the dream I must have had and how dreams sometimes leave a feeling behind that can last a few hours.

Over the next week, I’d go through my usual routine and prayer, expecting the familiar anti-ordination feelings to return. But they didn’t! The word ordination kept popping into my brain, planted there somehow, seemingly inescapable, getting more insistent. Eventually after about a month I realised that God had changed something within me that night of the dream. The penny was dropping that he was calling me for something that made no sense in my eyes, but for which I was no longer antagonistic. The more I turned it over and over in my head and the point at which I said “really God? I mean really?”, a peace descended on me so it felt right. It made absolutely no rationale sense in my mind. I liked the job I did, I enjoyed working, I earn a good salary and yet here I was now accepting what I felt God was revealing to me. A feeling of how I am meant to be, ordained, not something I wanted to do, but something I am meant to be.

I spoke to my husband- who didn’t dismiss it, I spoke to Graham. Neither thought I was foolish, neither thought I was mistaken and I realised I needed to explore further. I went through the diocesan process to find a spiritual director- a person to walk with you and guide you on your Christian journey- anyone can have one by the way and I thoroughly recommend it! I then met with the Diocesan Director of Ordinands and started the process of discernment.

About 14 months after my initial dream, I found myself at what I refer to as a practice Bap. Bap is the term used for Bishop’s Advisory Panel- and is basically the selection process. Derby diocese run a day where you have 3 interviews and do a presentation and then the Bishop decides whether to put you forward to a 3 day national panel. I found the diocesan day a scarier experience than the national one. I think it’s because I didn’t really know what to expect at the diocesan one, and I found one of the interviewers a very scary person who never cracked a smile once. Of course, as is always the case, that was the interview I knew least about and so in typical Dawn fashion, I waffled. Nothing from the interviewer, face stern and un-moving, prompting me, trying to get from me something I clearly wasn’t understanding what they were after. So I waffled on, skirting around trying to find the elusive nail to hit on the head, finally I think they gave up, having heard enough of me going on about nothing much. No doubt you’re all probably looking at your watches now and thinking- she’s going on again, we understand how that woman was feeling!

Well, I‘ll soon be finished! I thought I had done badly and wouldn’t get recommended, but they put me through. So then I thought if they pout me through they probably put everyone through, but I later found out that was not the case at all. Anyway I’ve written more about the national BAP in the annual church meeting booklet, so won’t repeat that now.

So I am at the Queen’s Foundation Ecumenical Theological college in Birmingham (rather a mouthful I know); and which I attend one evening a week and 6 residential weekends a year. Tomorrow I go away for a week to be immersed in Holy Week and come home next Sunday after lunch. There are lots of essays which cause me a degree of anxiety, to say the least as I don’t just wrestle with the text, but battle with whole concepts and I continue to work full time- so it has become quite common of late for me to have some emotional moments at home just with trying to keep everything in the balance. But I am managing to pass okay and it’s really about the whole process of formation, not just doing essays.

Having said all this and despite my emotional meltdowns, I am absolutely loving it and feel sure that this is where I’m meant to be. I still feel unworthy and think therefore that God has an amazing sense of humour in using me…. And then I look at the characters of the Bible- look at Peter, a simple fisherman, denying Jesus in today’s reading, but pivotal in the story of Christianity.

This is my last Sunday at Emmanuel until the summer. I start my placement in a couple of weeks and will be at St Augustine’s in Normanton, Derby. But I will be around for PCC and deanery synod and I’ll be back on a Sunday at the start of July so please keep me in your prayers.

So upon my own experiences, what does this say about calling?

Well God calls each of us for work in his kingdom. Sometimes we can be so busy looking and asking him what he wants us to do and we just need to be still and wait patiently and he will reveal it.

God keeps on calling us, just because we’ve said yes once, it doesn’t mean that’s it we can put our feet up! And just because he calls a particular way one time, it may be quite a different way the next.

We can do anything for God in his strength, but we have

to accept the call- God won’t force us.

No matter how unworthy you feel, God loves you and has a job for you and it’s often not what you thought it might have been.

That actually in our Christian journey, we can expect our faith to be tested; illness, grieving and suffering are unfortunately part of life in this fallen world and that is the time to turn to God, not away- but he is big enough to take anger, blame, mocking and tears.

There will be times when our circumstances are such that we are hanging on the cross with Jesus, suffering beyond all measure and feeling apart from God. We will experience and corporately remember this Jesus’ own suffering to take away our sins this Good Friday; but the cross of course is not the end, resurrection comes, death is conquered and the promise that whoever believes in Jesus will have eternal life- I find that so absolutely amazing!

How can we not have hope, how can we doubt God’s love and understanding? How can we not respond when he calls us? What is your call, listen, be open and respond for he will lift you up to soar on wings like eagles and give you all the strength you need.

Amen