80,000

One of the things we cannot see is up the road.  From where we stand in the present moment, it is impossible to see where the road takes us.  While we may have some notions, maybe some expectations and hopes, it is likely that the road ahead will be filled more with surprises than the things anticipated.  Back in June of 2008 with retirement still two years ahead, I wrote the first JourneyNotes.  I had my own ideas about what was ahead.  It was going to be more like an addendum to my ministry instead of the core that it has become in these fourteen years.     

The provider of the space for the blog has a counter which records the number of times someone goes to the blog to read.  This week I noticed that number had reached a smidgen over 80,000.  It is something I could not have imagined back in the days of beginning when I was writing four or five posts a month instead of one each day.  How that happened I am not sure.  I do know it was not in the original plan, but it happened.  As I went along it seemed like where the road was taking me and so I went along.    

What I have discovered is that I have exchanged a visible congregation for an invisible one.  Some of the invisible ones are people I know, people who have encouraged me to continue by their writing notes, and some who find their way to what is written in much the same way as I found myself coming to the place of writing.  I have come to understand God has been in all of it.  The call to preach is no longer a compelling issue in my life.  It has become more of a call to write.  But, whether I preach, or write, it still has the same feeling of being called by God to be a part of what He is about in the world.  I am humbled that so many have become readers and deeply grateful to God for finding me a place in these days of retirement.