[This is my September church newsletter article... the last one I will write as Associate Pastor at Gethsemane Lutheran Church. As you can see, I am deeply grateful for the time spent in ministry with these good folks.]
Farewells are never easy. When love has been shared they are all the more difficult. I will never forget one of the most difficult farewells I had experienced.
Ann Christin and I had formed a prayer group with five other friends while studying at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN. I know of no way of being more intimate than joining hand-in-hand in prayer.
Beginning with coffee (how else would I begin?) our evenings spent in prayer would sometimes last for hours. Late into the night we sat on the floor of my seminary dorm room and bared our souls to one another and the God who united us.
It would be an understatement to say that the last prayer gathering we had together was an emotional time.
In a way only she could do, Ann Christin soon got us singing a simple children’s lullaby. The words go something like this:
”Beautiful, beautiful Jesus is beautiful
and Jesus makes beautiful
things of my life.
Carefully touching me
making my eyes to see
that Jesus makes beautiful
things of my life.”
Between sung notes broken from the tears flowing freely down our faces, we understood that Jesus had made something very beautiful out of that group.
As I near this farewell, I have been humming that tune many times of late. I could not have asked for a better group of individuals nor a better community of faith to help form me into the pastor I am today.
Five years we shared in ministry... five years of joys and sorrows, laughter and silence. In many and various ways these years have been like an extended time of prayer shared together in God’s embrace.
Last Thursday morning I spent some moments in prayer while standing in the balcony looking down over the empty pews of our church sanctuary. And I was overcome with thanksgiving for the many ways we have—as individuals and as a community—been touched by the Holy Spirit and how God’s love has indeed made beautiful things of our lives.
This farewell will be bittersweet; I look forward to the ways in which God’s call leads us to new horizons and yet I am saddened to leave your side. At a time such as this it is that song which says it best:
”Beautiful, beautiful Jesus is beautiful...”
~ Pastor Darin G.E. Elvemo
1 comment:
PD-
What a beautiful final newsletter article. We miss you and AC dearly here in the states, but wish you well as you begin your new adventure. My hope and prayer is that you are doing well. Keep in touch my friend!
-Amy
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