The Home Stretch

Every year when January comes around, pastor’s who have been appointed to their UM Church for more than 3 or 4 years start to wonder if they are going to have to move. I have mentioned this before and since we are in our seventh year in this church, all year long we have known that in sometime between the end of January and the middle of May we could get a call saying we’re going to move.

It isn’t really cool to speculate or to talk about this much, so I will be discreet so that the “powers that be” don’t stumble upon the blog and chastise my husband. However, it looks like it is blog material.

The beginning of the decision making process starts in two weeks and after that we could get “the call” that immediately changes our life forever. If that happens, we will have anywhere from 3-6 months to completely transition our family into a whole new world. And if/when that happens, whether it is this year, or next year, or three years from now, it will be hard.

When we started doing foster care, we were told not to get attached, but we did anyway. When you’re a pastor’s family, knowing that you will move around alot, you try to tell yourself the same thing, but it never works. There are SO many awesome people in our church and the thought of leaving them, combined with the thought of them having to have a different pastor, bothers us.

Here’s a great example. This morning Tony woke up with his eye shut and very pink. I have surgery tomorrow and so there is NO way I could take him to the doctor to get a prescription, nor was there any way we could keep him home and without antibiotics he wouldn’t be allowed back in school. But we have a physician in our congregation who was willing to call the pharmacy from the church sound booth and I picked up the prescription right after church and we’re back on track.

Other examples include people who willingly keep our children for us whenever we go out of town without expecting to be paid or to have the favor returned. I could start naming all the things that people in our church have done and do for us, but it would take yards of blog space.

Today I found out a couple pieces of information that make me think that maybe this will be the year and the not knowing is killing me. I am the kind of person who can be happy anywhere, and I always love a challenge, so I think, eventually, after the grieving is done, it will ultimately be OK either way... but now that we’re in the home stretch I want to scream “I WANT TO STAY.”

Sort of like today all of the sudden, the day before surgery I want to scream “IT’S OK. I WANT TO BE FAT.” But in both situations, it may be too late.