Back to the familiar

I didn't have real plans for worship this weekend. So I went back to the congregation that I feel could be a church home if I were looking for one.

The first reason for attending was a feeling of tiredness after a semi disappointing Christmas break. I had been so excited to have almost two weeks off...two Sundays with no worship to plan and attend and no Christmas Eve service to stay home for. The original plan had been to go to my daughter's the weekend before Christmas, spend Christmas Eve and Day with family and head out on a trip the week after. My daughter, who owns her own business, asked that we come after Christmas because they would not be in the shop on Thursday and Friday. They were doing a practice run with the store staff for when they would be on their vacation and wanted to be in town in case there were issues.

The first weekend, we just stayed home. We left on Monday for my mom's. Jack and I went to see the latest Star Wars movie and got groceries. Tuesday we hung with my mom and convinced her to attend worship at her church with us. Christmas Day we went to the regular holiday gathering and stayed an extra two hours in order to force my mother to do something other than sit home and focus on her mouth (a story for another time). Thursday we headed out to Erie. We were to pick my daughter up at the car dealership where her car was getting looked at. We had to pick her husband up at the shop where he had stopped in to monitor the opening schedule that the staff was in charge of for the first time. My bank happens to be next door to the shop, so while the others went there, I finally got my mailing address changed on my account (a three person, twenty minute ordeal).

We didn't have real plans for our time together which was a good thing. The kids found out that their car could not be repaired or couldn't be repaired economically. The balance of our time together revolved around the kids researching and test driving new vehicles. They did make a decision to lease a vehicle in the shop's name. We did eat meals together and the kids got to go ice skating together. It wasn't a total loss.

But again, no trip, no vacation feeling, we returned home to a nothing schedule and I had a sub assignment on Thursday. I wasn't up for making a trip to a new and different worship experience.

Also, the pastor at this church had just made public the news that after six years of trying to adopt a child as a single somewhere around fifty year old man, he finally had some good news to share. He was fostering an almost seven year old boy who was available for adoption. This boy had four siblings younger than himself in different foster homes. The pastor is going to be able to foster to adopt all five siblings! It is going to take a village, but this former kindergarten teacher/pastor/lifelong student feels that God's timing is perfect and his lifelong dream of being a father will finally come to fruition. I wanted to share my joy in his situation in person.

Worship itself was as wonderful as I expected it to be. The only thing I would point out was that two of the hymns did not include all the verses. It was printed in the bulletin along with the page number, but only the hymn name was announced and the congregation ended up starting to sing the wrong verses. What was worse on one hymn, the choir was singing the wrong verse!

I wonder where I'll be going this week.