Love’s Month

“A happy heart makes the face cheerful…” (Proverbs 15:13)

Here we are going into the month of February.  How did your “Resolutions” go?  Going, going, gone!  Time to start over.  Oh well, we can begin again and try harder.

Thinking about “Love’s Month” helps us to focus on an exciting future.  We get engrossed in “wooing” and cooing and planning for the future.  We are making plans for “forever” and are excited about the prospects.  We hope that the “other party” is as excited as we are.  We plan on “living on love.”  Too bad we soon find out that it is a fight for survival as we try to force our “other” partner to become “Everything WE” thought they should be.

That is where we are as a church.  We think we have a perfect pastor (or know just what is “perfect”) to come and lead us and it doesn’t pan out.  We get discouraged and dejected.  But, LOVE has a plan for us.

We can wear false grins or we can have a cheerful face.  It all depends on where the heart is and what it is feeling.

Just like dating and marriage, searching for our new leader is both risk-taking and an adventure.  It depends mostly on our dreams and visions for the future.  Many will say, “No way!”  Others will be more open, “Convince me.”  While a few will respond, “Change can be a positive action, not a defeating event.”

How many of you remember the old wall phones?  How about the “rotary” phones?  Then came the punch button phones.  Now it is “cell” phones.  Change is-a-happenin’.  So it is with the church.  Change can be positive, or change can be negative, it’s up to you.

Did the earth stop, did the earth stand still?  No.  Life goes on.  Ministry goes on.  Sharing and caring goes on.  As we begin February, let us do so with “A happy heart [that] makes the face cheerful.”

Charis:  Rev. Gage