New Light Switches

Being a pk (preacher's kid) and the father of two pks, I know a lot about moving from one parsonage to another.  It is the Methodist way.  We moved on Wednesday or Thursday with our grief over leaving a place full of memories and showed up at church on Sunday with a smile as big as east and west so that folks were aware of how good it was to be in a new place full of strange people and an uncertain future.  We learned how to say good bye quickly and to say hello even quicker.  We were given a few days to grieve over the loss of the past, but only a few.    

It would be a wonderful thing if it was that easy to deal with loss in our life.  Of course, we all deal with loss.  It may be the loss of home in a moment of moving, or the accidental loss of something full of sentimental value, or the loss of a job, or the loss of someone we love.   Whenever we experience loss in our life, it is like walking into a new parsonage, or home.  The light switches are not where they used to be.  The rooms are not in the same place.  Household things work differently.  The walls are bare and the moving boxes are stacked to the ceiling.  The order that went with the old has been replaced with the chaos of the new.    

Though it does not happen right away the new slowly gives way and becomes like the comfortable old.  The chaos is replaced not with the same order as the old, but with an order which goes with the new.  But, it takes time.  The process happens, but it cannot be hurried.  So, it is with the moments of grief in our life.  For a long time we will not know where to find the light switches, but one day we will know again.  The good news is that as we stumble around in the dark, God will help us find the new light switches and create a new order out of the chaos.  .