resurrection on the mountain

I came to Montreat with a full to-do list and a half-full heart.

I had been carrying a grief so heavy it reshaped me, forming a new self in the wake of unfathomable tragedy. I had been navigating life after loss, trying to remember how to breathe again…how to believe again. I came wondering if my faith would ever feel whole. If I would ever feel whole. And somehow, Montreat met me right there.

In the chaos.

In the unknown.

In the tension.

In the sacred ordinary.

Church services weren’t something I really wanted to be a part of. Since Zach passed away, I hadn’t really allowed myself to sit through worship, because if I am being honest, I was pissed. I couldn’t believe God had led me to this point in my life, where I had finally figured out my path forward, and then ripped all sense of normalcy and comfort away.

Figuring out my life in the wake of it all, in the loss, in the pain, and true emptiness… Montreat created a path back to God. Even after loss that bent my bones and left me unsure if I could ever return to ministry with hope… God whispered resurrection. I showed up, and sure enough, was met with the exact kind of love I had been craving, even though I didn’t know it. 

I watched over the entirety of the last few weeks as God took all the heavy, deep emotions I was carrying into this valley, and worked with all I had. God stood with me, this team, this community, not just in theory, but in practice. 

Two weeks. Over 1,500 students. A ten-person planning team. A stage leadership crew that became family. Support staff who showed up without needing recognition. A Co-Director who allowed me to believe that I was enough exactly as I was. And somewhere in the middle of it all…. Me. Rediscovering who I am and who I’ve always been.

Through each service, I was validated in my experiences. Psalm 23 reminded me that God does not wait for us on the other side of suffering. God walks with us through it. That we live out that love and walk every time we share the community with those around us. God sets a table in the wilderness. God anoints us while we are still in the shadow and in the dark. We spent so much of this week learning about reclaiming the dark: as a womb and not a tomb. As the place of becoming, not of ending. We remembered that chaos is not failure… it is the raw material of creation. Because, God tore the sky open over Jesus’ baptism and said it was good. The holy spirit came down, chaos and all and said yes. We were invited to see the mess not as proof that we are lost, but as a place where God looks and says, "I can work with this.”

I carried my chaos here. We all did. And Montreat met me in it all. 

The psalms gave me space, the stories of Ruth and Naomi, of Nicodemus, of Saul turned Paul… each gave me openness and space to grow in each. Worship gave me permission to bring my full self: my questions, my grief, my fatigue, my fire. And in it all I found the ability to be exactly who I needed to be.

I stood alongside a team of leaders who reminded me daily: we are not just holding space for others, we are being shaped, too. We named that we are all in process. That transfiguration doesn't happen only on mountaintops: it happens in spreadsheets and backstage run-throughs and miscommunications and reconciliations. In every ordinary, hard, beautiful moment where we saw the glory of God working in every aspect of our day-to-day life. It happens in candlelight, but it also happens in conflict. We learned to see in the dark.

We adjusted our eyes, and in doing so, we caught the glimmers: in the testimonies of others, in the communion we shared, in the questions brave enough to be asked aloud. We remembered that the world is not waiting for our perfection, it's waiting for our honesty. Our vulnerability. Our becoming. Montreat did not give me back the version of myself I was before the grief. It gave me the one who came through it: tender, strong, honest, and still a little broken. But no longer numb… I am once again capable of feeling the deep expanse of emotions I have always had.

I believe again. And maybe for the first time in a long time, I believe in myself too.

God used this place, these people, this calling… to reignite something I thought was gone. My faith which had been depleted and felt false and unwilling. But here… here, I saw how leadership can be quiet and fierce. How joy and rage and exhaustion and beauty can coexist. How grief never fully leaves, but it can walk beside joy and not erase it. And in it all, I saw how the Spirit works through community. This sacred gathering of people, one that will never happen again, changed me. 

God moved in my chest like wind in dry lungs…

Whispering resurrection into my bones… 

But, in all of it, I didn’t just survive.

I reignited, rekindled, reimagined, renewed.

I felt my faith come back into my heart - not perfectly, not completely put together, but in a real, honest, messy, holy, very human way.

And I leave this place tomorrow… not with a perfect understanding, but with a path to walk. One dimly lit by trust and shaped by resurrection. One that reminds me I am not here to shine alone… but to light the way with others. So here I go. With a lam

p unto my feet. With the Spirit beside me. With a heart that’s been broken and mended and called again.

The most beautiful piece of artwork made just for me by the Rev. Casey Wait. See more at: https://www.caseywaitart.com/about-the-artist

This wasn’t just a job.

This was healing.

This was a sacred fire.

I’m not who I was when I arrived.

I’m more myself than I’ve been in a long time.

I leave this place with a faith that’s alive again.

With a hope for ministry that feels wide and deep.

With a fierce belief that God is still working

through me, around me, within me.

I leave knowing I am deeply loved.

That my leadership is valuable.

That my voice is needed.

That my call is real.

And I carry all of it…

every lesson, every laugh, every tear, every moment,

into whatever comes next.

Thank you to all who walked with me.

You held me.

You raised me.

Montreat, you resurrected me.

And I will never be the same.