“Losing My Life to Save It” by Michele Frome

September 13, 2015 

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

It doesn’t just say “if you lose your life, you’ll save it”… it says “if you lose your life for my sake, you’ll save it.”

The Message.  Here’s what it says in this part of Mark’s Gospel:

illusion that I was in control, and to make a decision to get Michele out of the driver’s seat and let God lead. 

turning it over has come slowly and gradually, usually through prayer and pain.  

only for knowledge of God’s will and the power to carry that out.”  In Seekers vocabulary, this says I seek to know and follow God’s call.”

me, my will, my wants, my needs, my insecurity, my desire to be important.  That’s not God’s will – God’s will is not about me.  Turning over my will to God requires humility; it requires letting go of my ego.  When I do it, I lose my life for God’s sake—-and I save it by finding a new source of freedom and meaning.

want what God wills for me.”

For a long time I struggled, I resisted, I lived in despair and depression.  At one point, my spiritual advisor gave me a word to meditate on.  The word was SURRENDER.  Boy, I hated that word!  But I was desperate and did what I was told: I walked and meditated on that word every day.  Eventually, I realized what Surrender met.  Surrender meant not resisting or resenting the circumstances of my life.  It meant to quit fighting, to accept my reality, and to willingly embrace it.

really matters in the end is not what you accomplish, it’s love. I lost my life for the sake of something much greater than me, and I got it back many times over.

Seekers Church is a great place to be “lost”.  This community offers a lot of tools for seeking one’s call, and I took advantage of many of them. 

With a Growing Edge Fund grant from the Seeker’s Mission Support Group, I completed my first unit of CPE training at Frederick County Hospice in June, and this month I began my second unit of training at the Hebrew Home nursing home in Rockville, again with Growing Edge Fund support.

What have I learned?

chaplain, I learned, is very different than the role of a caregiver. It’s a different mindset.  I was surprised to find myself in uncharted territory.

without speech, without words, without even an audible voice…

do” anything – I am simply to be present.  When I give myself permission to do nothing, I have a totally different experience.  It really does open me up to be more fully present. 

desire to pursue this path, but I think it’s still an open question whether or not I’ll succeed in developing the skills to do it well. It’s not easy to change the way I think, the way I listen, and the way I hear.

In summary, in my own life I’ve identified four ways I can “lose my life for the sake of the gospels, and thus save it”:

I am free at my center.”  For me, this means I lose my life and get it back  in a whole new way.

Further on, our Reflection reads: “it is well, again and again, to re-establish my dedication,

now?  How am I being called to lose my life in order to save it?

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”  Amen.