Release

written by Alyson Arrington

So I will start off by saying that I have never written a blog post before, and one might turn to me in response and say something along the lines of: “well why don’t you just read a few posts of a blog and get the feel for it and then write away!” Before I graduated college, before I entered the Fellows program, that is precisely what I would have done. However keeping in tune with my one-word prayer that Papa Tripp stirred within each one of us at our very first family dinner (under the stars I might add, it was very classy): I am going to not read any blog posts nor even ask Jessie what it is I am supposed to be writing here!

Release. Release is my one word prayer. Tripp asked us each to think of one word that we wished to be praying for each other in this season together here in sweet, sweet Greensboro. I know for myself there has been such an enormous shift in being able to release my impatience, fears, disappointments and restlessness to the Lord this semester. When I pass along this blog to the other Fellows each week, I am hoping that each of us will be able to convey to all of us reading this that they too are feeling the prayers and their one word develop in them. For me I first felt my word really developing during our trip to Virginia for our testimony retreat weekend. I wrestled from the moment Tripp sent the email about how to deliver my story; the parts of it that are painful, the parts that could be awkward, even the parts that make my heart smile. I decided not to type it all up and pore over it every two days and edit it until it was perfect like I planned. I decided to RELEASE it to the Lord and the words that were supposed to come out would come out and there wouldn’t be any preparation.

I hope the rest of the Fellows are finding time to explore their words as well, and maybe even beginning to pray some of each other’s words for their own lives. Because while a lot of us Fellows ran around like chickens with our heads cut off the first semester (I believe that is the way Elsa put it) as we settled into new roles and new living situations and new jobs and responsibilities, I was always calmed by the idea that God has put each of us here in this program together for reasons we aren’t supposed to understand yet. We might have looked at each other at one point, and thought, “I have absolutely no idea how they are going to make a difference in my life”. But that’s the beauty of it! The Fellows program is a recipe picked out by the Lord; Tripp and Sarah have done the grocery shopping and dumped us all in one big bowl and now it’s up to the 14 of us to ride the whisk as God mixes the bowl.

“I find you Lord in all Things and in all my fellow creatures, pulsing with your life; as a tiny seed you sleep in what is small, and in the vast you vastly yield yourself.” – The Book of Hours