Whenever I used to get in my car to go somewhere, I always had my ipod. It didn’t matter how far I was going, I plugged my ipod into the radio and always had the music on. Lately, my radio is off. I don’t take my ipod with me when I drive places. Instead of searching for radio stations or throwing in a cd, I tend to drive in silence.
In the silence, on the roads between snow-covered fields, my mind goes in a few different directions. To-do lists. Upcoming events. Lately, it’s been going a lot to my dad. I’m not sure what it is – if it is the farms and the fields, something else, or remembering that it was first my dad who ever put the idea of ministry in my head.
Sometimes, when I drive, I think of how proud my dad would be of me. In high school, I remember going somewhere with him in his truck. I don’t remember where we were going or what we were doing. He suggested that I think about ministry as a possible career track. I’m not sure if he saw in me gifts for ministry or if he simply thought it’d be pretty great to have a daughter who was a pastor. He told me more than once, in his giddy voice, how proud he would be to tell people that his daughter was a minister. There are many people and reasons that got me to this place but my dad, telling me that, is one of the great reasons why I am here now, whether I recognized it at that point in my teenage life or not.
Here I am, halfway through my internship and one and half years short of becoming an ordained pastor. It sucks – it simply sucks – that my dad is no longer on this journey with me. I know that he would have been one of my biggest supporters and fans alongside me in the struggles of seminary and joys of ministry. I would love to be able to share church stories or hear his feedback on sermons. I would love to hear him tell me that he is proud of me again.
Still. I know he is.
there's no place like gnome. 
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