Parson to Person
#24 ~ An ongoing 'imaginative/non-fictional' series.
The weeks following Christmas were a strange mix for me. The Gerrys had been attending church each Sunday since they first visited on Christmas Eve. Their children were very excited about the children’s programs, and Jesse had started coming to my Wednesday morning men’s group. God was certainly at work in him. He had developed an incredible appetite for spiritual conversation and was asking very good questions.
Things were looking very good for Robin too. Her doctor concluded she was cancer free at her follow-up appointment. She had come by the house to tell Sarah, and we wound up inviting her to stay for supper. During the course of the evening it became clear that she had grown in her faith through it all.
Dani was spending more time with Renaldo. The Santiagos visited our church every other week or so, and Dani had attended a couple more of the services at St. Boniface. I discovered that two of the devotional writers that I very much admired, Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton were Catholics. I read them, it seemed, with a little different perspective since we had begun our friendship with Hector and Lucienne. I was surprised that the Santiagos hadn’t heard of either of them.
But then there was the growing storm surrounding my future at Covenant. I arrived at the conclusion that this wasn’t simply going to pass, and that these folks had one outcome in view – my removal. The ‘pack’, as Sarah referred to them, now included two more. In addition to Jay and Evelyn Dukes and Earnest and Sylvia Wright, now a very dear old widow named Rose Gould and a man who I barely recalled attending the church, Stuart, had joined the fun.
As I prayed about it all – mostly that my attitude would be God honoring – I realized that my Board had not been as verbal in my defense as I would have expected. One of the Board Members shared that his hopes were to ‘see this process through’ so that maybe the Dukes and the Wrights would return to Covenant. I didn’t share his hope. From my vantage point it seemed so clear that God was doing amazing things all around us and then there was this thorn in my side – this one issue that if it would go away, life and ministry would be tremendous.
So as I looked over my notes preparing, that is how I prayed, “Lord, three hours from this great committee meeting… will you take this thorn away?”
The weeks following Christmas were a strange mix for me. The Gerrys had been attending church each Sunday since they first visited on Christmas Eve. Their children were very excited about the children’s programs, and Jesse had started coming to my Wednesday morning men’s group. God was certainly at work in him. He had developed an incredible appetite for spiritual conversation and was asking very good questions.
Things were looking very good for Robin too. Her doctor concluded she was cancer free at her follow-up appointment. She had come by the house to tell Sarah, and we wound up inviting her to stay for supper. During the course of the evening it became clear that she had grown in her faith through it all.
Dani was spending more time with Renaldo. The Santiagos visited our church every other week or so, and Dani had attended a couple more of the services at St. Boniface. I discovered that two of the devotional writers that I very much admired, Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton were Catholics. I read them, it seemed, with a little different perspective since we had begun our friendship with Hector and Lucienne. I was surprised that the Santiagos hadn’t heard of either of them.
But then there was the growing storm surrounding my future at Covenant. I arrived at the conclusion that this wasn’t simply going to pass, and that these folks had one outcome in view – my removal. The ‘pack’, as Sarah referred to them, now included two more. In addition to Jay and Evelyn Dukes and Earnest and Sylvia Wright, now a very dear old widow named Rose Gould and a man who I barely recalled attending the church, Stuart, had joined the fun.
As I prayed about it all – mostly that my attitude would be God honoring – I realized that my Board had not been as verbal in my defense as I would have expected. One of the Board Members shared that his hopes were to ‘see this process through’ so that maybe the Dukes and the Wrights would return to Covenant. I didn’t share his hope. From my vantage point it seemed so clear that God was doing amazing things all around us and then there was this thorn in my side – this one issue that if it would go away, life and ministry would be tremendous.
So as I looked over my notes preparing, that is how I prayed, “Lord, three hours from this great committee meeting… will you take this thorn away?”
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