{"id":2061,"date":"2015-09-22T01:07:45","date_gmt":"2015-09-22T01:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/?p=2061"},"modified":"2015-09-22T01:21:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T01:21:24","slug":"lord-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/2015\/09\/22\/lord-help\/","title":{"rendered":"LORD, Help!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/96\/2015\/09\/dru.jpg\" rel=\"prettyPhoto[2061]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-2062\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/96\/2015\/09\/dru-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"dru\" width=\"178\" height=\"223\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/96\/2015\/09\/dru-240x300.jpg 240w, http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/96\/2015\/09\/dru.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 178px) 100vw, 178px\" \/><\/a>Drusilla (Dru) McLeland is starting her final year of seminary at Northern Theological Seminary, Lombard, IL Campus. This fall, she is doing her internship as a \u201cfemale pastoral presence\u201d at The Evangelical Covenant Church of Hinsdale with Pastors Paul Allen and Lars Stromberg. She and Paul have been married for twenty-nine years and have one daughter, Kathryn.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>One of things I continually strive for is a healthy life balance of being and doing.\u00a0 In pursuit of this, I am working on adopting seven daily practices:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Make my bed.<\/li>\n<li>Make a short \u201cto do\u201d list.<\/li>\n<li>Spend time reading the Bible, reflecting, journaling and praying.<\/li>\n<li>At least thirty minutes of exercise.<\/li>\n<li>Do something for my home.<\/li>\n<li>Connect with one other person outside my family.<\/li>\n<li>Do something creative.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>As I think about this list, I realize it could become a formula for life balance but it might not actually lead to a balanced life.\u00a0 My \u201cformula\u201d was challenged when I read an article from The Gospel Coalition, \u201cA Call for a More Reflective Christianity.\u201d \u00a0(click\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegospelcoalition.org\/article\/a-call-for-a-more-reflective-christianity\">here<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>I think one of our roles as pastors is to create sacred spaces and call people away from the busyness of life to reflect on God.\u00a0 I have found that it\u2019s easier to provide a formula or a plan of action than to spend time reflecting and being.\u00a0 Sometimes I feel guilty about spending time in quiet reflection and solitude, but unless I practice this, how can I lead others to do it?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>This article encouraged me to continue the practice of reflection.\u00a0 I took some time to look up Psalm 107 and quickly saw the repeated cry for help and God\u2019s response of rescue: \u201cLORD, help!\u201d they cried in their trouble, and he rescued them from their distress\u201d (NLT, verses 6, 13, 19, 28). \u00a0This is followed by the refrain: \u201cLet them praise the LORD for His great love and for the wonderful things He has done for them. (NLT, verses 8, 15, 21, 31).\u00a0 As I reflect on Psalm 107 I remember times when I have cried out, \u201cLORD, help!\u201d and he has rescued me from my distress.\u00a0 I confess this has happened many times as I walk this journey of pastoral call.<\/p>\n<p>One of those times was in March of 2014.\u00a0 It was one week since my job ended and I was walking across the lawn to the library on campus.\u00a0 Final papers loomed, application deadlines for Clinical Pastoral Education were past and nothing had opened up, and discouragement hung like a Ziggy rain cloud over me.\u00a0 I cried out \u201cHelp, LORD!\u201d\u00a0 I reminded God that this call to ministry and the ensuing seminary education was NOT my idea so if I was ever going to graduate, He needed to step in and do something!\u00a0 I walked into the library as was greeted by Roni Okubo, Director of Supervised Ministry.\u00a0 She listened to my concerns and prayed with me.\u00a0 I went to work on research.<\/p>\n<p>About ten minutes later, Roni walked out of her office and said with a grin, \u201cSo, you need CPE?\u00a0 How about this summer?\u201d\u00a0 The CPE supervisor from Adventist Midwest Health has just called her to say she had a couple of openings for the summer for a student who could submit their application in the next two days.\u00a0 Within forty-eight hours I had an interview set up for the next week.\u00a0 Two weeks to the hour from the time my job ended, the CPE supervisor was saying to me, \u201cDru, I want to invite you to join our chaplaincy team for the summer.\u00a0 I think you\u2019ll be a great addition to our ministry.\u201d\u00a0 That summer was one of the hardest and the best of my life.\u00a0 Only God, in his great love, could\u2019ve orchestrated it.\u00a0 When I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m on this journey I remember this event and once again I praise God for His great love and salvation in my distress.<\/p>\n<p>As you reflect on your ministry journey, is there a story of God\u2019s rescue that you would tell us to remind us of God\u2019s great love and the wonderful things He has done?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge?moderation_action=report_form&#038;object_type=post&#038;object_id=2061&#038;width=250&#038;height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drusilla (Dru) McLeland is starting her final year of seminary at Northern Theological Seminary, Lombard, IL Campus. This fall, she is doing her internship as a \u201cfemale pastoral presence\u201d at The Evangelical Covenant Church of Hinsdale with Pastors Paul Allen and Lars Stromberg. She and Paul have been married for twenty-nine years and have one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19328],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-testimoies-and-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>LORD, Help! - Commission on Biblical Gender Equality<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/bge\/2015\/09\/22\/lord-help\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LORD, Help! - Commission on Biblical Gender Equality\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Drusilla (Dru) McLeland is starting her final year of seminary at Northern Theological Seminary, Lombard, IL Campus. This fall, she is doing her internship as a \u201cfemale pastoral presence\u201d at The Evangelical Covenant Church of Hinsdale with Pastors Paul Allen and Lars Stromberg. 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