Late February in Pennsylvania is a cold, grey bucket of suck.

It’s an identity crisis in real-time.

It’s the season where the sky can’t decide between a 50° tease of spring and a snowpocalypse.

For me, the atmosphere in late February always feels heavy, no matter what the stupid groundhog and his weather are doing.

My internal February calendar is marked with the jagged ghosts of an anniversary I now mark with pride…but that wasn’t always the case.

It marks the anniversary of leaving the church I grew up in—leaving the full time ministry I had known and loved for over a decade and stepping into a void where I felt utterly, spiritually abandoned.

Fifteen years ago, my world didn’t just crack; it shattered into approximately a million jagged, unidentifiable pieces.

I didn’t just lose my voice; I lost the whole damn melody.

I couldn’t remember the song in my heart, and frankly, I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to sing it again.

And then I met…her.

And meeting her changed…everything.

Back then, she didn’t give me platitudes or a “thoughts and prayers” pat on the back.

She did the much harder thing.

Something no one else in my life had ever done.

She sat on an old brown love seat in her office, held my hand, and listened.

She wrapped her arms around me and sat in the metaphorical shit with me as I shared the deep, wounded, messy places of my soul with her.

She cried with me.

She cried with me and told me, through her own tears, that what had happened to me wasn’t my fault.

She helped me pick through the debris of my life and told me, with a terrifying level of certainty, that I was worthy.

That I was enough.

She told me she would believe it for me until I was capable of believing it for myself.

She sang my heart-song back to me until I remembered the lyrics.

She walked with me through the better part of a decade of deconstruction, reconstruction, and the kind of intentional growth that usually involves a lot of swearing and soul-searching.

Today, five years since we last saw each other, she came back to visit.

To lead worship with our new parish minister…and me, leading the music.

When she wrapped me in a hug before the service, I felt something deep and abiding in my spirit just…settle.

You know that feeling when the last puzzle piece clicks, or when the feedback on the mic finally stops screeching and leaves you with pure resonance?

That.

PStanding there, leading the music as the Community Minister, there wasn’t a single flicker of the old self-doubt.

No “am I doing this right?” or “do I belong here?” Just the deep, vibrating hum of a calling reclaimed.

At one point, the two of them joined me on the the floor at the front of the sanctuary to help lead a song that was a round.

I looked at them on either side of me, all three of us in our stoles and preaching clothes, and one word settled in my spirit – equals.

We were leading worship together, as colleagues. As equals.

In that moment, my spirit felt the wholeness that had quietly been growing for years leap with joy.

It was a good service, with ferocious, vulnerable, passionate preaching and excellent music (if I do say so myself).

Unfortunately, we didn’t get very much time to talk. It was a very quick In-and-Out visit for her. but we did find time for a couple more hugs.

i’ve been sitting here this evening, processing the events of this morning, watching the snow fall yet again, and I have found myself thinking back to the Sunday I officially became a Unitarian Universalist.

She stood in front of the congregation, introducing all of us who were joining, and when she got to me, she said: “Chris is a writer. She says nice things about me on the internet… and she is very brave.”

I’ll be honest. At the time, I thought she was hallucinating the “brave” part.

But she really was right.

(She’s usually right. It’s annoying, really.)

It took me the better part of a decade to realize that bravery isn’t holding it together so no one sees how shattered you actually are.

Bravery is what happens when you let someone hold your hand while you find your voice again.

It’s what happens when you stop apologizing for the space you take up – in the pulpit and in the world.

Today, I was so happy to see her, so grateful to be able to hug her…but I didn’t need her to sing my song for me the way she used to.

I sang it for myself.

Getting to share literal music AND my heart song with the person who spent years hugging me, holding me, listening as I poured out the stories of my shattered spirit was profoundly moving. It felt like that great, wild kind of peace that transcends categorization or definition.

It is a deep, abiding connection that sits deep in your soul and just…is .

So, here I am, fifteen years later.

Still a writer.

Still once in a while saying nice things about her on the internet (😉 if you’re reading this, Aija, you can say I told you so. You’ve earned this one.).

And finally,

finally,

brave enough,

At peace with my soul

And living out my calling to be exactly who I am meant to be.