Worth a Zero
Almost two months ago, I set a goal of writing two blog posts a week as a way of waking up my long dormant personal writing chops. I had a perfect record…until last Thursday. I have a bit of a perfectionist streak in me, so all I could see was a big fat zero at the top of my imaginary (and blank) post assignment paper. I hate making bad grades. In fact, when I met up with my first grade teacher many years after I sat in her classroom I asked her if she remembered anything about what I was like as a first grader. She said, “I remember that you hating making mistakes. If you got a paper back that had even a single “X” on it, you would hide it inside your desk as quickly as you could so that no one else would see it.” I guess old habits die hard.
Last Wednesday and Thursday, the days I normally would have been thinking about writing a post, I was instead writing the funeral service for a dear friend from my first church in Landrum. This woman and her family took me and my kids in and made us part of their family. My two youngest spent many happy hours playing at their house so that I could work, attend one of the many games/events of my oldest, or take care of errands that would have been so much harder with two toddlers along for the ride.
I have maintained contact with some of the folks from that first church, but this family is the only one still active in the life of that church that we visited on several occasions. Not that we didn’t want to see anyone else, mind you. I love those precious people. But this family was my family, just not by blood. When I got word that their matriarch had died, I was crushed. On our last visit just a couple of months before the beginning of the pandemic, she asked me if I would do her service when she died. Of course I said I would. Then I added the contingency, “But not any time soon, okay?” This was way too soon.
I worked hard on that service. I wanted it to be everything she deserved. It was also the first time I would step into that pulpit, my very first pulpit, in almost 12 years. I wanted anyone there who knew me back in the earliest days of my ministry to feel good about the time and patience they invested in me as a new pastor. I think it went well. I’m satisfied that I gave it my best. And that’s worth getting that zero last Thursday.
simplyjan 