Reflecting back on things now, I think the single most moving moment of the whole entire weekend was on Sunday. After Fr. Benedict was ordained as a priest, he served us communion... us, the brand-new parish of 12 newly-chrismated believers who'd been on this journey along with him. And tho I was not consciously thinking of it at the time, I can look back and see how God started leading me to this time and place as far back as 10 years ago, how one thing led to another thing, which led to another thing...how the most seemingly random connections (joining an Anglican church, which is how I met Fr. B and my other friends/now fellow-parishoners on Facebook; then someone posting a link to Ancient Faith Radio over a year ago... and so on) all worked together to bring me to that point right then and there. And all of us have stories like that, about how God brought us right to that time and place thru a series of seemingly random events... anyway, just to be a part of that moment was absolutely priceless and one I'll never forget. I was tearing up before it was even my turn to receive. There was just something about that particular moment that was overwhelming.
There were other moments too... when my daughter was baptized... when we were all chrismated... the kindness of the nuns at Sts. Mary & Martha Monastery (OCA) that we got to visit on Saturday (one in particular noticed how tired I looked and kept saying over and over again how she will pray for me...think she figured out that I'm a single mom tho I didn't outright say so, lol).... when we were presented with our icon of St. Nicholas at lunch on Sunday.... the sense of awe and wonder and "being HOME" as we were chrismated and during our first Divine Liturgy the next day... the feeling of watching a church family being born right before our eyes. We all went over to SC as Anglican or Presbyterian or Catholic or "miscellaneous religious background" lay folks and we all came home together as a church family.
It was a time I'll never, ever forget...something quite special, quite remarkable indeed. I am so thankful God made a way for the kids and I to be a part of it.