Confirmation, Partings and Going Forth

This has been a full weekend for our clan. Lorna and I went to a costume / Dia de los Muertos wedding on Saturday night (she will tell about that as soon as her camera is charged again) and we had family in town for Maren's confirmation.

For the past nine weeks, Maren has been going each Wednesday night to confirmation class in preparation for this day. She has been preparing to be in full membership within our church and hopefully to have a better understanding about her faith and relationship to God. The confirmation class discussed baptism by a local lake, baked bread and discussed communion and this past week attended Catholic mass to see relationships that exist with Methodism. This whole process has been made all the more special by the fact that our pastors Fred and Sharon also retired today. This was their last confirmation class. To say this was a day of emotion and some tears has been an understatement.

I thought that I was good with the whole thing (Maren's confirmation and the retirement) until the moment of this picture when Fred laid his hands on my daughter's head and tried to say his prepared words. He had to pause for a long moment as he composed himself and in that moment, I came to realize what partings were truly happening today. I say partings because goodbyes are too final and complete. You see, Maren moves one more step confidently into adulthood and away from that sweet girl child I have known since birth. I have been luckily noticing more changes with her as I have spent the last few weeks with her in youth group, at the fall festival and back and forth driving to cross-country. There is no denying she is growing up. I now know how my parents have felt at key points in my life. Thanks Mom and Dad, Henry and Mary for being with us at this special moment in Maren's life.

Fred and Sharon also part ways with our family of faith and more specifically my children, my wife and myself as they begin retirement and we continue down the road of raising children. These are two people who we have met in their home, they have come to ours for church meetings, we have planned, disagreed and worked to create wonderful events together with others in the congregation. They baptized Reed, confirmed Lane and have sat in the hospital with us when we needed them the last five and three-quarter years. Fred and Sharon even called on my dad when he was in a local hospital with a stroke. Yes, in that moment of hand laying, I too got tears in my eyes and paused. Why had it taken me until now to see what was happening? Too busy in the details as Lorna tells me.

The rest of the service was meaningful and full of bidding farewell. We had a wonderful lunch and presented gifts to Fred and Sharon. In the end, several members and guests stood and spoke about Fred and Sharon. I was asked to say something on behalf of longtime members. What I said is a bit of a blur, but the essence is thank you. Thank you for being models for my kids, thank you for bringing my baby baptized into the faith, thank you for helping bring my two older ones through the confirmation process and helping Lorna and I shape them into godly people, and finally thank you for helping me grow in my faith. I have always known God in my life, but not as closely as these years I have served as a member of this church, in this place and in this moment. Now Lorna, Lane, Maren, Reed and I go forth with someone new next Sunday. Go forth in the way Fred has always bid the congregation to go forth and serve each week. Hopefully, we all go forth to continue to grow, love and serve. Thank you.

P.S. Sharon made a comment after I spoke about coming to visit us five and three-quarter years ago. They knocked on our door on a Monday evening not long after we had brought Reed home from neonatal ICU. We were VERY frazzeled to say the least. So, Lorna goes to the door, has a short conversation with Fred and Sharon on the doorstep. They probably thought us very rude. Fred and Sharon leave with Sharon evidently commenting to Fred that they will NEVER see us again. Then we showed up at the first church service at Good News and have been there ever since. Here's what Sharon didn't know. We had talked about going to Good News weeks before Reed was born, and probably would have invited them in on that Monday evening ----- however ------ I was on the coach in my boxers with a newborn who we trying to get to sleep. Just goes to show, you never know!