In my last week at Robinson Evangelical UMC I had a particularly sad moment.
I loved serving that little community. I fit right in and was so happy being part of small town life. The news from the General Board of Global Ministries that I had been hired as a standard support missionary came quickly and unexpectedly. On Thursday I told our lay leader that I would be announcing my departure on Sunday ... and that the following Sunday would be my last.
I lived in a beautiful house with a big garage which belonged to a church member. It had been her parent's house and had sat empty for a while. It was perfect except it lacked a stove. I had a crock-pot which helped, but I really needed a stove top. One of the dearest church members told me that her daughter had a stove top range that I could use. On the Friday before I made my announcement, I was at this woman's house and she proudly announced that her daughter had finally brought it over.
I knew that it wouldn't be right for me to take it and give the impression that I would be using only to return it on Monday. I couldn't share yet with the congregation that I would be leaving. I told her that it wasn't what I was looking for and apologized and left. She seemed a little hurt.
She called the lay leader and complained that I hadn't taken the appliance and kept asking the lay leader why she was crying.
On Sunday she understood why I had refused the cooker. She cried and hugged me for a long time.
I hate making decisions that can't be immediately shared. I hate holding any information from people - especially when someone else tells me that I have to. These days of working with lawyers and property and everything else just hold a lot of information that is "need to know only." It's not a bad thing. Most of the information is more positive than negative - but I hate the burden of bearing information.
Again, I am brought back to the adage that "love and time heal all things." We just keep working for the best solution and I look forward to when I can share all the good news!
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3 comments:
I'm with you on this - I HATE "keeping secrets". Confidences are a whole other thing - but stuff like the appointment process or whatever - it puts you in an awkward position... When I was leaving Bethel Park and had told the staff but not the congregation, someone called my secretary and, since I hadn't thought through enough to prepare her, she lied to the person... I had to do a lot of work (for both people) on that one... sigh...
By the way, I love your cat's name - Mefodyi... Does it mean something in a language I don't know? (Heh...I don't even know how to ask that question...)
So I Googled Mefodyi - and got Mefodiy...bishop...read the Wikipedia page... is that who he is named after? I seem to remember you saying something about that once before...gah... I'm old and my memory is failing...
Yes - he is named after Methodius of "Cyryll and Methodius" the first missionaries to the Slavic world. They named the alphabet after Cyryll(ic) but Methodius got nothin. So ... Now he has a cat named after him.
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