Yesterday afternoon we had a potluck feastival to say good bye to our Pastor, Laszlo, and his wife, Sheryl. In accordance with United Methodist itinerant pastoral tradition, they have been transfered to Arizona. <\/p>\n
This is good for Pastor because he has completed his mission here with us (creating unity between two merging congregations) and he is now free to persue a new ministry and enhance his God given gifts and talents. This is good for Sherry because she is back home, close to her family and able to see them whenever she wishes. This is good for me because I will be exposed to the thoughts, ideas and guidance of a new pastor so I, too, will grow spiritually.<\/p>\n
Yet, beneath the blessing of this move is an extreme sadness. For every new beginning there must be an ending. I now have an empty space in my daily life. Sherry and I shared a mutual concern for each other’s well being. We shared our thoughts, ideas, opinions, joys, sorrows, irritations — and silliness. My ears will miss her laughter.<\/p>\n
Although our parting isn’t permanent and our friendship is not ending, it will have to change to meet our new circumstances. Solomon points out that there is a time for everything. He even explains that not all things seem good, and it is not for us to understand the workings of God. In Ecclesiastes 1:12 Solomon explains, “There is nothing better for [us] then to be happy and do good while [we] live.” (my paraphrase)<\/p>\n
It is hard to be happy while mouring a loss, but today I decided to rejoice in the fact that I have this friend to grieve over. Even if for some reason we never meet again, Sherry has greatly enriched my life. That is a priceless gift well worth celebrating. <\/p>\n
Everyday that God gives us is a potluck feastival of new beginnings. I will look forward to them, and let the endings take care of themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday afternoon we had a potluck feastival to say good bye to our Pastor, Laszlo, and his wife, Sheryl. In accordance with United Methodist itinerant pastoral tradition, they have been transfered to Arizona. This is good for Pastor because he has completed his mission here with us (creating unity between two merging congregations) and he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quilldancer.com\/meditations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}