Farewell for Now

This past weekend marked the retirement date for our pastor of 16 years.  We have known about this date for a long time now, but it approached quicker than I anticipated.  I'm still not sure that I am fully feeling everything I should feel when someone who has been a part of your spiritual life for that long leaves.  There are several reason why that might be - which I won't go into - which is one of the reasons I'm not sure I should do this post now.  (I'm not sure it has fully sunk in - and maybe I should write about this when it actually does sink in - and I still might.)  As I look back at the last sixteen years he has been here - he has done a lot for our family.  He married Jon and I, baptized all of our kids, gave the funeral for our dear sweet TJ (who absolutely adored this man) and has been pretty instrumental in our spiritual walk.  Every Sunday as soon as he would say the benediction our kids would run down to the front of the church to go sit and chat with Pastor Don.  I know they will miss that when he is no longer serving our church. Although we will no longer see Pastor Don - the impact he left on our lives will always be a part of us. 


 
This was the usual picture on Sundays (along with many other children)!
 
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Love To Tell The Story

I kissed Jon good bye and slowly rode the escalator up to security.  The butterflies in my stomach were about too much to handle.  I was leaving all by myself to the She Speaks Conference - to say I was a little nervous might have been an understatement.  I knew that God had ordained this trip from the very beginning - every thing fell into place perfectly.  It just wasn't in God's plan for anyone to go with me.  I knew it was the best plan but it still didn't calm my nerves that early Thursday morning. I made it to security - took off my shoes, unloaded my quart size bag of liquids, put my bag on the conveyor belt and made my way through when I noticed my bag was pushed off to the side.  The following conversation happened with The TSA guy and myself. "Ma'am is that your bag?" "Yes." "Do you have anything sharp in your bag?" "Yes, my razor." Then he reaches into my bag - grabs any item I had packed and pulls it out. H...
Read more

Grieving Still

I love to read other people's blogs.  Sometimes I get neat ideas from them or at other times it's just fun to hear what is going on in that particular family.  I few months after TJ passed away I received an email from a friend of the family's to check out a certain blog.  This particular family had just lost their 15 year old son to pancreatic cancer.  I decided to go back to their caringbridge page to read more about their journey.  There were some similarities and some major differences, however, we have both experienced the loss of our sons WAY too early.  I love to read her blog because I can totally relate with her.  I almost feel as if everything she shares are my feelings as well.  She shared something on her blog the other day (something someone else had shared with her) and I hope you all don't take this the wrong way, (I'm sorry in advance) but  Our transition is still a grieving one. They are SPOT ON!...
Read more

A Much Too Familiar Road

Image
I've sat down at the computer for the last two days trying to put my thoughts together for this post, but the truth is I can't (and every time I start to type the tears begin to flow).  I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words - so please forgive me if this post is all over the place or a bunch of rambling.  Two years ago we made the decision to stop treatments and to come home to hospice.  Two years later (to the date) Jon's parents made the same decision.  Jon's Dad has been battling lung cancer for a little over a year now.  Two weeks ago he was admitted to the hospital for various reasons - and Monday they brought him home to start hospice care.  He wasn't home long when the decision was made to bring him to the Serenity House (almost two years to the exact day TJ was brought there).  I'm not going to lie - this hasn't been easy.  It just doesn't seem fair.  This road is all too familiar and I can't believe we are ...
Read more