Jewells of Thought

Sunday Morning. Memories. Decisions. Going to church was difficult this morning. The past week has been hard on our congregation with two funerals in one week. Then the night before my family got the news we were waiting for.

As I said in Sunday School it was a double whammy. Tears and memories of this and that kept stinging my eyes all morning long. So I nearly couldn’t get myself together for Sunday School. Yet I knew I needed to so I pushed onward no matter how late I might be. Somehow I was able to finish with the ladies the last 10 to 15 minutes of the class.

My nose hurt for days from those sniffles from that morning. However, life is filled with challenges it is a fact we must accept. It is how we deal with these challenges that shape us and define us in our lives. This was first typed last Sunday, but I didn’t get any further to complete my thoughts.

When I came to Grandma’s church 3 years ago on Mother’s Day I had no idea how long it would last. I just knew God had spoken numerous times and I had avoided this call to action for a good while. It hurt having to leave Fellowship when I was getting to know some of the new people including the preacher and his wife and 2 kids at that point. Fellowship Baptist Church like Pleasantville Community Church is interwoven into my heart as it is in my past memories.

This past weekend was the 250th Anniversary of our beloved 4th of July. When I was a youngster, a teenager really, we had a spot for the Linton Parade every year. It wasn’t until we began at Fellowship that we had been at Pastor Hartman’s house on the south side of his house where that blessed shade tree used to be. We definitely felt the lack of that tree this year.

Also on my Dad’s side my Aunt Carol’s family had a spot on the opposite side of the road for many years. Somehow through the years they moved closer to us on our side of the road. Pastor Hartman may be retired, but he still gets to hear the parade from inside his house watching it in the house thanks to Channel 2 WTWO broadcasting it for the community that can’t sit outside to watch it. Memories of long ago filled my mind Saturday as we saw him and his daughter and other friends from church.

We used to have nearly 20 Alsmans in that corner of his house now it was 4 of us Bishops/Alsmans. A lot has changed but these churches remain in my heart.

Still I try to stay in contact as much as I can with my friends and family still at Fellowship. It is getting harder with things changing really fast. However, now I seem to be at Pleasantville rather permanently except when there’s an event at my parent’s church. Now I am flying solo though. I have had 3 years being able to sit with Grandma and it was never an imposition. It felt like an honor and a privilege to do so. I am starting to see a bigger kaleidoscope vision here though that I had not fully embraced before.

The only thing that would make this perfect for me is Bryan. God willing if things finally get tied up the way we both want them to be we wont be both sailing solo anymore. This is my continual prayer and I do see a sliver of hope in the horizon, we both do. A part of me just really has a hard time with the fact that it wont be 3 of us sitting together. We still spend as much time with her as we can, and I have no regrets of not spending Sunday mornings with her at church when I could have anymore!

There is a powerful peace in knowing I did follow God’s calling on this eventually. This is why following the Holy Spirit’s guidance and hearing it is so crucial. When it’s not heeded what could have changed or been done the right way the first time, but wasn’t because you feared what could happen like physically taking action that would hurt, but more if you didn’t and had regrets. I have lived through inaction before and regretted it before it’s a lesson learned that everyone has to learn either the easy way or the difficult one.

Now I am pretty much writing my own chapter. I am the continuation of the Lester, Harbin and Bishop line at Pleasantville Church of over 205 years not quite as long as the Anniversary of July 4th but still a long heritage for my family. The preacher is another Harbin and Bishop line with his kids since we are cousins. It’s pretty amazing to know this history and see what more we can bring to the legendary heritage this church has in our future.