Mid-life throws us some mean curves. We expect certain losses: our parents passing away, our kids moving on, our bodies changing. It’s the ones we least expect that sometimes catapult us into crisis.
As we sat listening to the sermon, my husband and I gripped each other’s hands and fought back tears. The time had come for him to resign. Though we had seen this on the horizon, the realization gutted us.
After fifteen years of service to our church, he packed up his office and we said a tearful goodbye to the congregation. You lose a lot more than a paycheck when you terminate employment with a church. We were now without a community, without the surrogate aunts and uncles who had loved on our kids, and without a context to serve.
These were not our only losses.
Three days prior to that pivotal Sunday, we buried my mother-in-law. She died in her mid-seventies after a lightening quick battle with pancreatic cancer. Within the next few months, my father and two other close relatives were also diagnosed with cancer. Additionally, our eldest son was moving on. He married young and started a new life 1,500 miles away. Launching a child is obviously not the same as losing a parent, but in both situations, the sudden absence of someone who is deeply loved creates a gaping hole.
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Original photo by Dorothy Greco