Revival has come and gone and July has drawn to a close. Vacation Bible School lessons have been learned and volunteers can put their feet up until next year. Vacation to Chicago had and memories await storing. The local Volunteer Fire Department has commemorated the community’s vision and its 35th anniversary. Ice cream made has been eaten and dunking preacher balls have been thrown. And one very tired but very happy preacher is ready to say good-bye to another July.
July is my birthday month and in years past, I would celebrate from beginning to end, labeling July as “the month of Beth”. I haven’t done that for a long time, but this month brought it back to mind in a very different way than those days when I would self-reward the whole month long.
This July’s month-of-Beth celebrations include a grandson at the age of discovery and great good humor. . . local friends, old and new sharing their journeys of faith . . . time well met at the communion table again and again and again . . . songs of faith and love and sorrow and pilgrimage whispering into my soul . . . prayers colored into lasting shapes to remember the ones prayed for by . . . young moms laughing with delight at their children racing across the lawn . . . families struggling to find their place and their way . . . time spent with my son, whom I respect as well as love, enjoy as well as treasure . . . doors opened by friends to this weary traveler . . . a hiatus in conflicts that just might become something more than a cease-fire . . . a congregant finding joy as well as meaning in the Bible as it speaks directly to him . . . old ladies sitting on lawn chairs doing their job – watching the children with joy in their existence . . . sorrys offered and accepted . . .
Yes, July has passed. It was a very good month. And I am grateful.
July is my birthday month and in years past, I would celebrate from beginning to end, labeling July as “the month of Beth”. I haven’t done that for a long time, but this month brought it back to mind in a very different way than those days when I would self-reward the whole month long.
This July’s month-of-Beth celebrations include a grandson at the age of discovery and great good humor. . . local friends, old and new sharing their journeys of faith . . . time well met at the communion table again and again and again . . . songs of faith and love and sorrow and pilgrimage whispering into my soul . . . prayers colored into lasting shapes to remember the ones prayed for by . . . young moms laughing with delight at their children racing across the lawn . . . families struggling to find their place and their way . . . time spent with my son, whom I respect as well as love, enjoy as well as treasure . . . doors opened by friends to this weary traveler . . . a hiatus in conflicts that just might become something more than a cease-fire . . . a congregant finding joy as well as meaning in the Bible as it speaks directly to him . . . old ladies sitting on lawn chairs doing their job – watching the children with joy in their existence . . . sorrys offered and accepted . . .
Yes, July has passed. It was a very good month. And I am grateful.
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