It has been a long time since my last post, about 6 weeks. A lot has happened in those six weeks and yet not much has changed.
I had gotten back to church and reconnected with my work family and friends. I had been praying about what God wanted me to do about church. I knew that He wanted me to be involved in a church family but going to the church Debbie and I had attended for years, while being affirmed by the wonderful friends we had made, was so difficult. I just sobbed the whole time I was there. So I have been attending Chapin United Methodist Church. The preaching is excellent and the worship team is outstanding. The first Sunday back at church from the road trip Jodie, the lead pastor, preached on the second of three dangerous prayers (the first was "Search me"), "Break me". Of course that resonated with me as I wondered how much more broken did I need to be? I cried out to God "Really, aren't I broken enough?". The following week, Hugo, the youth pastor preached on "Send me". This message went with my search for figuring out what God wanted me to do from here.
In the mean time, I had been praying that if God wanted me at CUMC that He would open doors for me to connect with some older people at the church (like my age). The initial draw to the church had been through F3 guys who are all a good bit younger than I am. I mentioned this to one of the pastors and he suggested I join a men's bible study that met on Thursday mornings at 8am. So off I went on the Thursday after "Send me" Sunday to see what God had in store.
The bible study was good going line-by-line through the book of Acts and the men were welcoming and warm. Upon completion of the study time came for prayer requests and one gentleman stood and asked for prayer for the Jamaican medical mission team that was to leave that Sunday. It turns out that two of the physicians who had signed up to go had to cancel. One of those was a pediatrician. The Holy Spirit did His number on me and, right after the meeting, I approached the mission team member and told him there was no reason I couldn't go. I had a valid passport and anything I had going on could wait. So we went to the team leader, filled out some paper work and three days later I was on a plane with about 27 other church members on a team of about 35 to Harmons, Manchester Jamaica to serve with the WonbyonetoJamaica.com ministry.
The week was awesome. I worked with a great group of people including a 79 year old pediatrician who has the most genuine smile on her face all the time and an ER doc who was doing his residency when I first arrived in Columbia, a wonderful man of God. In addition, I had 35 new friends/mission family members many of whom were closer to my age and attended CUMC. The work was fun, the devotions were thought provoking and inspiring, the Jamaican people were lovely, it was just a great trip. Will it help me negotiate the landmines I expect will happen when I go to Honduras the first time without Debbie?
The last night of the mission trip was the "debrief" in a hotel in Montego Bay, our transition day. The whole team gathered after dinner and discussed how they felt about the trip and what they had learned. It was a very difficult gathering for me as many expressed their coming reunion with their spouses and family with delight. Don't get me wrong, though I have become quite fond of my two dogs (they're mine now, they were Debbie's) but returning to them isn't quite the same.
The trip had many positives and one of them is that I was invited to participate in a small group, seven of whom were on the trip. They are older than the F3 guys, but not quite my age. Still it is a place where I can belong. Everyone needs to feel like they belong somewhere, right?
Another positive since I returned is that I have made plans to meet Allyson, Tobias and the girls in the Canary Islands this spring. Surely something to look forward to. I also had a guys night out with my one and only grandson which was great fun.
Once again it was great to reunite with my work family. They planned a 70's themed retirement party since there had been no time to get it all together over the summer. It was great fun and I felt totally affirmed by the staff. Brittany and Andrew were able to come from Raleigh and join in the festivities. I am so thankful for the way the staff truly seem happy to see me when I go to do some IT work at the hospital. In addition, my kids continue to check on dear ol' dad and support me in every way they know how. All of this takes some of the sting off the loneliness that so frequently overshadows my soul.
The next time I went to CUMC I got a celestial sucker punch again when the band played "Death Arrested" which is the song we played at Debbie's funeral. If you haven't heard it, you should. Just YouTube "Death Arrested" and click on the acoustic North Point version. It is an awesome song that describes what Debbie experienced when she entered eternity. It is really a happy song but is destined to cause tears to well up whenever I hear it until I'm with Debbie again.
Despite all the positive things I've experienced since retiring, I still have no routine, no place I have to be, no feeling of being needed other than the stuff I do with the clinic. I know I need to be doing for others but haven't discovered what that is. The sadness and loneliness is paralyzing at times and I cry out to God for the Phillipians 4:6 kind of peace but it eludes me. It feels like I am a prisoner of my circumstances, when there's something fun going on I'm happy, when there isn't I am lonely and sad. What I long for is joy in the Lord independent of my circumstances, that I will see Him as all sufficient, that I would revel in His strength while I feel weak. I know that I know that I know that He will never leave me or forsake me but I feel so.........human.
