News

It was a dark and stormy night. Actually, it was just dark outside. I've just always wanted to start a story that way.

Through much of the day we'd been installing a new laminate floor in the church. We had worked together and had ample opportunities to practice the fruit of the Spirit with one another, especially patients, kindness, and self-control.

And long suffering.

The directions were more complicated than we originally thought. Some of my tools had been stolen when we turned our backs for just a few seconds. The materials were backbreakingly heavy. Dirt and scraps were everywhere. Sawdust stuck to our skin.

The project was about 80% complete that Saturday night with three services scheduled for Sunday. We would not be able to finish. We came to a reasonable stopping point and called it quits. That night I went back to the church alone to try to set up a few things for morning and to finish the sermon, now only 14 hours away.

It was then that he just opened the door and walked in like he owned the place. I knew who he was as he had lived up the street from the church for many years. But I don't recall having said anything more personal to him than things like, "beautiful evening tonight" when we'd passed on the street. I think a couple of his grandkids might have been to a festival the church hosted once. I wasn't sure of his name.

He said, "I saw the lights on so I came in because I knew you'd want to hear my good news." This was followed by an overly detailed and graphic description of the hunting trip he'd been on that day. He got a deer.

After congratulating him I said, "And you have perfect timing, too. You got here just as I was going to try to get this refrigerator back in place. Can you help me for a minute?" He gladly did. We got the refrigerator out of the middle of the room then he headed out into the night to go home and share both his news and, in the near future, some cuts of meat with his neighbors.

Though sore and tired, bespeckled with sawdust, and still a little disgusted about the tools, hope was refreshed in me. Because for just a few minutes, the temporal reflected my hope in the things less easy to quantify.

My hope is that the church is a place where Light shines out into the surrounding darkness beckoning people to come in.

My hope is that the church is known as a place where people can come with Good News to share.

My hope is that the church will follow the Good News with opportunities to serve.

My hope is that the church will release people back into the world to continue sharing the Good News and to bless others from their bounty.

And sometimes just a glimpse of hope in the temporal gives me just enough Breath to buy new tools, set up the chairs, and blow away the personal thunderclouds on what what could have been a very dark and stormy night.

Lord, thank you for the hope you've placed in us. Help me to hand onto it amid each day's challenges.