Love and Mixed Feelings

It has been a bit of a tumultuous week for me. My time at my week-day job is coming to an end. My sister-in-law’s lovely sister-in-law died after a long battle with cancer. I’ve been saying goodbye in a few ways and grieving what soon won’t be in my life. I’m also anticipating Canada Day on Saturday.

Having mixed feelings is how I’ve described leaving my job. It’s also how I feel about Canada Day with its colonial roots and our horrific treatment of Indigenous Peoples. My congregation is hosting a tea at the annual Highland Games in Embro on Saturday,. We’re hoping to connect with the community in a way we haven’t been able to for a long time. We pray that we can be a blessing.

I’m aware of God leading me to slow down and rest after a tumultuous year. Though grief is tiring and the needs of others never stop, I’m able to sense that God is all around me. Last Sunday people didn’t know how exhausted and emotional I was and yet they gave hugs, they had gotten a fan to keep me cool in the pulpit, they served each other and visitors at our hot dog lunch celebrating a good year of Sunday school and they appreciated me for my ministry with them. It was a morning full of love and goodness and hope.

I’m starting a series for July on the fruit of the Spirit and this coming Sunday is about love. I’m thinking that the sermon may write itself, and God may just need to take it on as happened last Saturday morning in my stupor. So many examples of God’s love shone through last Sunday and in other people all around me who knew what was happening for me. I’ve been surrounded by love that has helped me navigate leaving.

Love is wonderful but our culture often equates it immediately with romance and what we can get out of a relationship. This Sunday I’m going to ask my people if they are ‘in love’ - brave enough to say the truth in love, to serve in love, to give in love, to help in love. Because without love being the basis for what we do the ability for God to work through it, and for our efforts to be a blessing, pretty much tank.

We talked last Sunday about the gifts of the Spirit, and I invited those there to both recognize the gifts they see in others and also to look within for the gifts God has given them. Those gifts need to be infused not just with the Spirit but with love in order to really make a difference. After all, in the end just three things will remain - faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love.

I sense when I’m being upheld in prayer, and that’s happened on a few occasions during very challenging events over the last year. I feel the love from people dear to me and want to be there for them just as much. People have made sacrifices for me, large and small, to show their care. It’s humbling and beautiful and I pray I’m as generous an advocate and friend to them.

It is love that buoys us up when we’re facing loss and uncertainty and trying to do the right thing with courage. It is love that gives us strength and direction towards God’s best rather than our own.

I pray that I spend lots of time ‘in love’ because Jesus showed us how and said it was incredibly important. I hope that my being ‘in love’ changes the trajectory of other people’s lives just as theirs has mine.

May you find yourself both loved well and ‘in love’ this week.