As we continue to learn the same lessons ...

Okay, so I had a rough transition to southwest Georgia. Although, I believed without doubt that we were supposed to be here and all that stuff we Christians tell ourselves to make difficult things okay, I was not okay. I had a fairly long grieving process for the life I left in Panama City. Last fall, everyone in my new church was very supportive, but I felt more and more isolated and left to my own devices. I would pray, and I swear, God would not answer. Stone. Brass sky. Something like that. Misty and I both were a little miserable. I turned to the one thing that is always comforting to me--food. I gained 23 pounds in about 4 months. It was fun. The holidays were awful. The choir threw a party after we had finished our Christmas musical presentation and I did not feel better. I can't say how awful I felt. This is the saddest, most pathetic, most self-loathing story ever told.

But something happened January 1, 2011. I don't know if it was God or me or both of us, but things began to change. Misty and I started going to a Sunday school class and that was good for both of us. I got into rehearsals for our church production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and that took up half my life for two months. The choir got gung ho about our Easter music and wanted to practice twice a week. And I had a big fundraising concert event 10 days after Easter called "Songs in the Key of Dance" to plan. I never had time to rest. And, besides all of this stuff that was going on, I decided to bring my treadmill back into the house. So I got in the habit of running a 5k six days a week and eating much less and being happy about it. And I read the Bible over and over again. Since I moved to Georgia, I read it through 4 full times. And, besides that, I had to transfer my ordination process to southwest Georgia as well. I've been busy.



It has been a very full year, one of the best and worst of my life. In a year like this, you would hope to learn something. So here is what I know now:



1. It is really hard to move to a small town where everyone is related to or has known everybody else in town since preschool. #Really hard.


2. For the first time since I went into full-time church ministry, I no longer wake up thinking I am just loaning myself out to a church before I decide to go back to the academic world. This is BIG. It means I no longer think of myself as a college professor. For the first time I think I need to be ordained because it is who I am.


3. Gaining the same weight you lost before is just hating yourself. The excuse not to exercise is always that we don't have enough time. But, I know this for sure, we have time to do everything we deem important. I am probably going to put this somewhere where I have to look at it everyday.


4. It is always better to stay busy than to let yourself have time to concentrate on what is not right in your life. So, in my summer off season, I am going on the youth choir tour to Key West, doing music for vacation Bible school, co-teaching an adult Bible study (Through the Bible in 90 Days) and taking a course in United Methodist history for my ordination.


So, if you have worried that I was not communicating with you. Cheer up. I wasn't communicating with anyone.


"But, thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Corinthians 15:57)