Everything Changes

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ¹There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: ²a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, ³a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, ⁴a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, ⁵a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, ⁶a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, ⁷a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, ⁸a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

It was a bittersweet day for me.  I got ready as usual.  Prepared my lesson, gathered my pens, hand-outs, offering basket, Bible, and notebook and waited for the women.  It was my women’s Bible study.  There were 8 of us this day.  We began by talking about how everyone was doing.  There were women there I d not seen in a while.  I also had two guests. Getting to know them was a blessing.  We joyfully ate our luncheon, and caught up on the news in our lives.

I feel like I have been teaching a women’s Bible Study forever.  Well, it was only about 25 years, at 4 different churches, with maybe a total of about 25 women (if they all came at the same time.)  The format and the women changed over the years, but the goal was always the same; women sharing their lives with other women while learning about what God expects us to do.

We had many out-reach projects.  I attempted to ‘take the church out of the church.’  We went to fold clothes at a homeless shelter, collected hygiene items for women in prison, we made bed rolls for the homeless, we made welsh cookies and sold them for missionaries, we support a missionary’s child, and a child in a third world country, and on and on.  We tried to do whatever our hands found to do, or our Pastor asked us to do.   This was a group of mostly retired women who still had a lot to give for the Kingdom, and still do. 

Over the many years I taught them on a variety of topics including; how the Jewish Holy Days intersect with our faith.  We had a Seder several times to illustrate the points.  I taught on many different books in the Bible, women in the Bible, prophets, and our current study is on the questions Jesus asked.     

It was rewarding and fulfilling, and …ending!  The Lord was moving me into another area of ministry and this would just be too much for me to do.  I sighed.  I feel like the teacher at the end of the school year when you release your students into the next grade level and ask yourself; did I teach them everything they need to know to make it in the next level?  Did I do all I could have to impart the wisdom they need in this world?

I trust they did learn the lessons they need as they face their next challenges.  I trust the Lord will continue to walk beside them and never leave them alone.  I trust! 

I read the words in the verses above written by the wisest man on earth, and the Holy Spirit, and I thought; while I am closing the door on this room in my life, the Lord is opening another one.  I had an exciting new adventure to look forward too!  I don’t know all it entails, but I do know since God is in it, it will be awesome!!  Yes, we may feel a sadness when one chapter ends.  But the next chapter may be the most exciting one ever.  Embrace it!