What inspires or motivates me to take one (painful, difficult) step after another?
It’s interesting that I should get this writing prompt because my word for 2026 is “move”.
During Advent I was part of a group reading Give Me a Word: The Promise of an Ancient Practice to Guide Your Year. We were supposed to wait for a word to just come to us, but I was busy searching for an inspiring, whimsical word – the right word. I had narrowed it down to about ten, but one morning on the exercise bike the word did come to me. Walking has been such an important physical and spiritual practice for me, and it’s become harder with the arthritis in my knees. So when I remember, I get on the exercise bike because it’s better than nothing. That morning I remembered a physical therapist had told me that “motion is lotion” and moving is the best thing for my knees. Move. The word just came to me with, it seemed, a little divine humor, because this year I am moving: out of my career, my home, my community.
I was ordained to be an itinerant pastor, moving where the Bishop discerns my gifts would best serve a congregation. In these last several years I’ve realized that moving my body is crucial to my physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. The Holy Spirit continues to move me away from what I’m pretty certain I know about God into the embrace of the profoundly loving yet mysterious Presence. Whenever I am stuck… writing a sermon, avoiding an issue, procrastinating, fearful… moving grounds me and frees me from mental doomscrolling.
Prayer: I want to walk with You, Jesus, even when the steps are painful and difficult, because in moving with You I realize You are already and always with me. “In God we live, move, and exist.” Acts 17:28 Amen
Pastor Marylee Sheffer