NEAR DONE

My interim time here in L church 1 hour commute each way will be over the beginning of October!
They have called a part-time pastor! Yay! They are so ready to move on and into something new.
I am ready to move on. In some ways, I have rested some on my laurels. Yes, there were the challenges of the Lenten Round Robins, but I guess I'm ready for some new challenges. But that is also what causes anxiety in me. New challenges. What will I be stepping into in the next interim? One never really knows for sure. I have been in the lion's den before. Not easy. But it worked out. I couldn't do as much as I would've like in that situation, but I got them through the worst of it and felt I was a non-anxious presence - which may have belied, what I really felt inside at times! Just had to stay centered and grounded in Christ.
   I know this next interim will not last 4 years! I pray it pays a bit more, maybe a little towards pension or medical would be nice. I have been working for 6 years without any pension or medical. A little would go a long way! That's the breaks when working part-time.
   I also am thinking that should this next interim work out (meeting in Sept), it would be in the town I am living in! I have never served a church in the town in which I resided!!! I was always the one commuting, while LH didn't have that far to commute.
   Which leads into the fact that after 13 years of living in our present community, I don't know all the side streets or even where all the nursing homes are. I just take the main drags to go to the bank, grocery store, library, dry cleaners, gas station, stores, etc. We really don't know anybody in town, except for our next door neighbors. Well, LH may know a parishioner or two from his last called
pastorate, but that is it!
    Guess I'll have to learn my way around town! Finally, after 13 years!
   Also, this is a more high church L church. I am a low life - opps - low church Presbyterian! I will
be challenged. I don't chant and they will have to put up with being called, 'beloved of God'. Hope it
doesn't hurt their L sensibilities!
    I will be stretched no doubt.
   I also realized while driving through town the other day, that every church in town (and there are a myriad of churches) I will be the only female, aside from the Salvation Army couple. WOW! It
never crossed my mind before - all the pastors in town are male. (CMA, DISCIPLES OF CHRIST,
AG, NAZARENE, UCC, CATHOLIC, NON-DENOMINATIONAL- 4 at least , METHODIST, EPSICOPAL, and at least two BAPTIST churches). It will be interesting to see how this works out if there is a ministerial or when working with one or another churches for community events or church observances. Hmmmm....been there before!
   Just have trust God and walk in faith as I have done all these years. In the meanwhile, I pray that  God will make me able to serve in ways that bring health and goodness to the congregation, that God's Spirit inspire me and grant me wisdom, that God and I will keep our good humor, come what
may!
   Now all I have to do is exit graciously while honoring this church's grief and mine after 4 years!
Praying about that as well.