Breaking Bread

After an hour journey spent traveling underground and walking on foot, we were finally greeted with familiarity: the Lutheran seal.  A fellow YAGM, Erin, and I were spending the weekend in central London.  Realizing the opportunity, we set off this morning to find the church we grew up in, hoping to feel closer to home. 

Walking into the sanctuary, I experienced a different kind of sensation, recognizing (without knowing before) I had missed the red hymnals and traditional services.  The simply beauty in the room left me craning my neck to look for every detailed arch and feeling humbly small next to the golden pipes of the organ.  We broke bread together, we sang together, and gave thanks.

At the end of the service, newcomers were asked to stand and tell our hometowns.  As Erin and I stood, we made eye contact thinking the similar thought, “Do we say that we are YAGMs?!”  We took the plunge, giving up our identity and admitting that we are missionaries within the Lutheran church.  It just so happened that this Sunday was the new Pastor’s first Sunday as well, starting God’s calling with the help of the same program (Time for God) Erin and I are affiliated with. Feeling an instant bond in the knowing of the complexity and hard beauty in the journey we are all sharing, we also realized we’ll be attending the same conferences throughout the year.

So here I found myself with two other Lutherans, from different parts of the United States but tangled together in the same journey, trying to figure out why God has called us to be here… surrounded in a body of Lutherans from all different parts of the world under the same roof. 

 Though we are many, we are one body, because we all share in one bread.