This Reformation Sunday, I watched my son walk to the front of the sanctuary with ease.
He didn’t second-guess his invitation.
He didn’t measure himself against the room.
He simply stepped forward — fully himself — as if the space already knew his name.
And I realized:
The space was already open to him.
Thirteen years ago, on another Reformation Sunday, I assisted for the first time.
Different sanctuary.
Different season.
Different version of me.
I wasn’t unsure of my calling — I was simply learning how to stand in it without shrinking.
People had questions back then — not harmful ones, just uncertain ones — about how I would move, how I would handle the space, how I would be up front.
But the Spirit had already moved.
So I stepped in.
Pastor didn’t make a public moment out of it.
Didn’t cushion the room.
Didn’t narrow it either.
He simply did not close the space the Spirit had opened.
No spotlight.
No sentiment.
Just steady, unforced room.
Thirteen years have passed.
I am in seminary now — not because I planned any of this, but because the Spirit kept tugging, quietly and consistently, until the next step became unmistakable.
And my son is here now — not because I brought him, and not because faith is something “passed down,” but because his own spirit is being stirred.
His call is his own.
His belonging is his own.
His movement toward the front is his own.
I am an introvert. The kind who has to push past the thick internal walls that tell me to stay small, stay unseen, stay safe in the back pew. Standing up front is never effortless for me. It costs something. And yet, the Spirit keeps calling me into spaces I never would have chosen on my own — spaces that stretch me, shape me, and ask me to trust that I belonged before I felt it.
My son is different. He walks into the room wide open, unguarded, unafraid. Watching him step into that same space with joy rather than effort reminded me why I have said yes all these years — why I keep crossing the boundaries that would have kept me hidden. Because the Spirit is still calling. And the call is still worth it.
It was unmistakably holy:
The space made for me thirteen years ago- today welcomed my son.
Not as repetition.
Not as legacy.
As Reformation
And sitting there, I felt it —
that quiet awe.
Like catching a glimpse of the future through the doorway of the past.
Like seeing what becomes possible when the Spirit makes room
and we don’t shrink it back down.
No performance.
No lesson.
No grand story arc.
Just this:
The space held.
And now it holds more than one of us.
Here we are.
And here we stand.
That’s it.
Presence.
Call.
Reformation.
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