Today is the 12th Day of Christmas, and I feel like beating on my drum for a little while: in joy, celebration, and gratitude.
I played cars and trucks on the floor with our five-year-old, and later Yatzee with his older brother. All the while, I listened to Pauline entertaining and gossiping with our dinner guests. From those college days as she and I kept each other awake for all-night study binges, to these days as tag-team-parents, I am incredibly grateful for my intelligent and bold wife. I also cherish that she has a soft, squishy side that few people get to see and hold! It gets bumpy for us, like anyone else, so I'm grateful for her forgiveness and dedication, and the help we receive. What a fun family; it's more difficult and amazing than I ever imagined!
This evening we sat at dinner with a couple who knew us before we had kids. They were loving and helpful when we first moved to the area. Then, having adopted interacially some 30+ years before we did, they were there to share their care and support. Now, they are grandparents of a beloved adopted child. This couple reminds me of the other couples who have shared bread, lives, and love as we have all walked the path of infertility, grief, and adoption. Thank you, Lord, for bringing us together!
I am also deeply grateful for the pastors of Auburn, Washington who gather each month with the primary goal of mutual encouragement and prayer. I'm sure that there are communities or cities that bring together groups like ours. I pray that they are even more common than I suspect. I wish my own congregation members, and all the others in town, were fully aware of all the pastors who are praying for them! It is a great gift to have a fellowship of pastors that wants the best for each other's ministry, rather than competing with each other to be the best show in town.
And I love my work! This past week, the over-riding theme was stepping back from the drive to achieve or succeed. It seemed every meeting, every counseling session, and every conversation came back to our needs for relationship and walking together, or process versus results. I have conducted well-over 200 funerals, and many, many baptisms and weddings. I get to be with people during the most significant, deep, stressful and shaping moments of their lives! At Christmas and Easter, pastors can be frustrated and cynical about the people that show up once/twice each year. This year, I was deeply moved and grateful to see them. Yep, I'm still here. More important, God is still here, friends. His faithfulness never ends!
Thank you, God, for my church, my work, friends and family!
