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This month, I said goodbye to a labor of love of mine for the past several years.
Since 2013, I had been the coordinator of the young adult group (20s and 30s) — on a volunteer basis — at St. Maria Goretti Parish in Madison.
As I’ve gotten older, the new people have gotten “younger,” many of my longtime friends have moved on from the group or moved away, and myself having less time and energy to devote to the ministry, it was becoming obvious and apparent that it was time to move on and let others take over from here.
This month, I said goodbye to a labor of love of mine for the past several years.
Since 2013, I had been the coordinator of the young adult group (20s and 30s) — on a volunteer basis — at St. Maria Goretti Parish in Madison.
As I’ve gotten older, the new people have gotten “younger,” many of my longtime friends have moved on from the group or moved away, and myself having less time and energy to devote to the ministry, it was becoming obvious and apparent that it was time to move on and let others take over from here.
As I’ve been reflecting on this life change, how I’m supposed to feel about it, and what this will mean to me going forward, I started thinking back on other times my life changed, or turned a corner into something different.
Turning corners
It’s a normal part of life to go through different phases, eras, or whatever metaphor you want to use.
Graduating high school and college are big ones. In both instances, we move onto something new, and we don’t live our lives the same way we did before in those previous environments.
Job changes are other corners we turn. We get accustomed and comfortable with where we are at and then we move onto something different and, in some ways, have to start all over again — meeting new people, learning new technology and concepts, learning a new route to get to work on time.
We’ve had the luxury of handling some of these life changes knowing they were coming and we could adjust, practically and emotionally.
We were ready and adjusted accordingly.
Sometimes these corners we turn are not voluntary.
Sometimes the job changes are outside of our control. Life happened and we had to adjust to it on the fly.
Sometimes a family member, friend, or co-worker or boss dies, and we have no choice but to adjust.
Sometimes we can be in an accident we didn’t plan for or find ourselves in the middle of some other surprise traumatic event. Sometimes these can have short-term, easily handled consequences, but other times, they can change everything going forward.
‘The plans I have in mind for you’
What all of these scenarios have in common is things are never quite the same again as they were yesterday.
This can be very frightening and uncertain.
It’s easy to ponder and plan for the future if we assume every day is going to be like how it was.
Even as excited as an 18-year-old is to start college (think of a non-pandemic year) or as hopeful as a 28-year-old is to start a new high paying job, they’re still turning the corner toward something new, and leaving an old life behind.
Whenever uncertainty is the order of the day for me, I think about the “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you . . . plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope (Jeremiah 29:11 NABRE)” Bible passage.
It’s a calming assurance that even if we can’t see what is around the corner, God can, and he both knows there’s some good over there, and he’ll help us through whatever we need to arrive at that good around the bend.
I reflect on Good Friday also.
Another way to look at these corner turnings and life chances is to see them as a new way we die to ourselves.
Many times in life, we have to die to an old self, to be reborn to a new self.
Is that to say we shouldn’t miss what we’re leaving behind? Of course not. Sometimes we will.
There’s a reason people constantly use the “light at the end of the tunnel” or “greener pastures” analogies. Many times they are true.
God has a way of surprising us with blessings we never even thought of going into new life phases (and that’s why He is God and we are not).
As I finish this editorial, I accept that things are going to be different for me during my non-work time.
No longer will I be scrambling to coordinate events, communicate with people to set up service projects, or come up with new faith formation ideas for my peers.
I don’t know what’s next regarding my free time and my heart for ministry, but He does.
Jesus, I Trust in You.