Grateful

I was due to go to a church meeting a few weeks ago: it was important- the church has opportunities, but also problems that threaten to derail it.

Since I finished church ministry over nine years ago, I reckon I’ve only been to 3 or 4 evening meetings to do with church. When I’ve been, I’ve often arrived late and left early: this has been intentional- I haven’t wanted to be there.

For fifteen years, three or four evenings a week at meetings wasn’t unusual: now I baulk at the possibility of an occasional one. But, that evening I was ‘saved: unplanned, my older son came home for a few hours. The sense of joy at seeing him was matched by the sense of relief- I could make my excuses.

I immediately had a huge sense of gratitude: I don’t have to put vocation before family any more. Neither do I have to sit through lengthy meetings at night facing problems that I gradually became aware that I lacked capacity to solve. Sleep afterwards was a growing issue, especially once when none came after a meeting went sour around a year before I finished: I think that was the final breaking point.

But I’m also grateful beyond words that my previous life:-

-Introduced me to so many wonderful people (the vast majority).

-That I got to walk with people at their darkest times and their greatest celebrations.

-That I experienced so much support from ‘ordinary’ people. Actually, no one is ‘ordinary’…

-That I was given time to wrestle with faith and scripture in a way that felt like therapy.

…and there is so, so much more; I had just over fifteen years of life in all its fullness, of being part of something ….but I’m so grateful that I’m no longer in that place.