Unexpected Pleasures

 If you listen very carefully this week, I think you will be able to hear the grumbling and gnashing of teeth as the Elders and other officers of Leesburg Presbyterian Church - and every other Presbyterian Church across the country - struggle to church out their annual reports (they were due on January 3rd - Betty is waiting for yours).  It's hard to remember the things that were on our agenda tat the beginning of 2006, and now we're much too busy with January 2007's agenda to give any time to fulfilling our paperwork responsibilities.  But I wish to report that writing mine has been an unexpected pleasure.

Maybe it would be a good idea for all of us to spend some time this month writing an annual report on our own families as well as on our church family.  What changes has your family faced in 2006?  Has everyone adapted?  What were you most concerned about last January?  Were there resolutions to problems or are you just moving from one day to the next hoping they will all go away?  Do you need to try some different strategies?  What are your expectations for 2007?  What will it take to make those dreams actually happen?  Did you take time to celebrate the joys of 2006, or did you just let them slop away?  Relationships can't be fixed later; they need to be tended to every day.  did you say "Thank You!" often enough?  Did you say "You're wonderful!" often enough?  How about "I love you!"?  Maybe writing it all down will help you put the New Year into better perspective. Maybe it would give you some unexpected pleasure.

Last January I was working down the road at Manassas Church.  Their PNC was getting to the end of the process of searching for a new pastor.  I knew my time with them was almost over, and I began to wonder what God had in store for me.  At their Session Retreat last January we had been asked to fill up a treasure box with our expectations for 2006.  My card was a complete blank.  I had no idea what to expect from this year.  Does it seem to you that God is especially fond of surprising us?  "Behold I am about to do a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?"

One Sunday in May, a committee searching for an interim pastor at Leesburg showed up in worship at Manassas.  And by August, I was working very hard to learn your names - checking off a list of those I met each Sunday, staring at the last picture directory, trying to match up children with the right parents and faces with voices I had heard on the phone.  You were all very gracious and we were all very polite.  We weren't sure what to expect from each other.  We didn't want to get too involved.  An then, one day, and I failed to mark it on the calendar to include in the Annual Report, I started to think of LPC as "us" instead of "you".  I put away my list of names, because names had become people and people had become friends.  This surely isn't where I expected to be when 2006 began, but it surely has been a pleasure.

I must remember to thank God daily for all the unexpected pleasures that come my way!

Thank you!  You're Wonderful!  I love you!