So, I have an interview tomorrow for a very part-time interim in another denomination. I am anxious as I always am for one never knows what one will be asked. I will be praying much today and tomorrow, so that I can be a non-anxious presence to the ones who are really anxious and uncertain about their future and the journey of this interim time before them.
I will be learning new things all over again!!! That is the beauty and anxiety that comes with interim ministry - learning new things and reliance on God to make one able.
I am ready to serve again and have had a full summer off. (Almost guilty for having such time off and going to the Beach, visiting my niece and my trip across the pond - for I hear the tape in my head that those who don't work shouldn't spend what they don't have on such luxuries as vacation!) Perhaps, though, God was restoring my soul in this time after the year and half away from home and the need to let go of the congregation I finished serving. I was graced with the opportunity to attend my aunt's memorial service and to speak at that service (even if I stumble in my German) and I am so thankful and grateful to have been able to be there and be with what is now, extended family - all my cousins. I wouldn't have missed it for the world. And I know my Aunt was just tickled to see us all there together to take leave of her and her influence on our lives.
I supply preached at 3 different churches of this denomination this summer. Again, I see that as God preparing me for this possible new interim. Funny, that I never supply preached for my own denomination this summer!!! Makes me truly wonder at how God works so mysteriously and wonderfully.
The position is woefully part-time. However, I am thankful merely to be serving again. And will keep myself open to what may yet come to be.
It is difficult to make a life this way and to piece together some semblance of a life. LH and I both a have a few more years within us before retirement and it almost feels like retirement now. Only we can't afford to retire this early in life.
But I am grateful for this opportunity to serve and to minister and to get to know another community of Christ's beloved.