By now you may have noticed that fractured, broken, and beautiful is no longer the title of my blog. After a few months away from the game I came to the conclusion that things needed to change. Rather, not that I needed to change things, but life has changed so much that this too must adapt to the reality I face.

In the time that has passed since April 25th quite a bit has happened. I am well on my way through the re-enrollment process at Concordia Seminary having only one qualifier left to pass before the end of July. We are still trying to work out housing for our unique situation but I have no doubt we will figure this out in the coming week or so. The internship that defined most of my past 10 months came to a bittersweet conclusion. The people I leave behind at St. Paul will never be far from the thoughts and prayers of Holly and I. We were truly embraced by such a warm community. Holly too is finishing her job, wrapping up her duties at St. John’s in the next day or two. A few weeks of break, packing, weddings, and maybe preaching one weekend will keep us busy until the big move.

That move will also be bittersweet as I leave behind the place that granted me a Master of Arts in Christian Ministries on June 2nd of this year. I have grown in unexpected ways and have been pushed and stretched by unexpected people and while it is sad to leave, I know my place is in St. Louis with the family that gifted me my faith.

As the one chapter in our lives close and another begins I think it best for now to reveal the path of both myself and this blog in a few consecutive posts. Over the next few days I’ll be posting my final papers for Northern Seminary, my confession of faith and application paper. In them, I hope you will come to understand why I am going back to St. Louis, why I am no longer afraid or ashamed to be labeled as a Lutheran, and what this blog will hopefully turn into in the coming months. It is bittersweet to say goodbye to fractured, broken, and beautiful because of the therapeutic effort it had on my life. I know it will never go away, as I am still the one writing, but the time has come for a change. Rather than hide behind ambiguity I want to embrace it, I want to be open about my struggles, and I want to confess what I believe. That is why I chose the word credo (Latin: I believe) for the blog, because it connects me with the faith of the past, the faith that struggled with and embraced what it can and cannot know, the faith that was gifted to me, and the faith I pass on.