Phil. 1:3-11; 4: 4-9               Bev’s Letter to the Churches – DC, E, GR            June 17/07   Paul had to write to the churches he couldn’t be with!  Letters would take forever.  No e-mail or instant messenger for them!  What to put when his heart is so full of things he wants to make sure they remember.  I have a lot of sympathy for Paul.  What to say today with a full heart?  Remember this and oh, remember this…   But first I decided I’d share some of my struggle about how to leave well.  I’ve been very grim and grumpy, just like Small in our story.  I’m really glad that my family likely won’t tell you how grim and grumpy, but I know you’ve seen it on my face!  There are many wonderful things happening as well.  Still I dragged with a deep sadness.  Even though this leaving is my choice!  I kept telling myself, it’s only pain!  It’s not life threatening!    A large part of the pain is that I can’t have an ongoing relationship with you.  Some will have heard this already.  Why I can’t come back after July 1.  It’s for Barbara, for you, and for me.  I have to get out of the way so you can form the relationship with Barbara.  That means no funerals or weddings, because those are where you will get to know and love and appreciate her.  And I couldn’t possibly choose who I would visit.  And I will need to be getting to know a new congregation.  So out of love for me please help and don’t ask, because you can imagine how very painful it would be to keep saying no.  The service of closure we will share may seem unnecessarily hard and blunt, but it needs to be that honest and clear.   So in this final service, what do I want to tell you?  As always we turn to scripture.  And I say with Paul instead of worrying, pray!  Pray - to be open to receive strength and wisdom.  To give thanks.  Pray for others near or far.  And if you pray all day long as you think of things, you can get to sleep sooner, one woman told me because she didn’t have such a long list at bedtime.  But of course the best part is the close connection with God all day.  Praying like this we’re told, will give us peace - “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding.”   Paul goes on to say, “Rejoice in God always.  Let your gentleness be known to everyone.”  And to focus on the things that are excellent, honourable, just, pleasing, pure, true, and worthy of praise.  My Dad has learned that focus really well.  Recently, on what would have been Mom and his 65th anniversary, I asked him how it was going.  “Oh good,” he said.  “I spent the day remembering all the good times we shared.”  And that’s what he has said and lived even in that first excruciatingly painful year of her death.  What a gift that is to all of us!   Paul often wrote about his ministry of planting seeds and watering them.  But, he adds, God makes them grow.  We have watered together seeds that others planted with you before.  We have planted and watered more.  There are many different seeds, many different gifts – you know how important it is not to compare one person to another.  Each has been given different gifts, gifts that when used together, work for the building up of the Church.  And God will make them grow.   Some of you have generously shared with me that after our ministry together, you feel more ready to be the church now.  To take up the ministry that is very much yours as well, with confidence and joy.  I thought of the image of the Mother eagle.  One of the Biblical images for God.  Many will remember how the mother eagle carries her young on her back, until she thinks they’re ready to fly.  She will move out from underneath to test it out, and swoop back under should any of them still not be quite ready.   Whether it always feels like it or not, with God’s help, “You are ready to soar!”    Some of you have been kind enough to tell me your faith has grown as we have walked together, so I will say with Paul: Phil. 4: 9  “Keep on doing the things of God that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”    Paul’s letter says much about love.   I say with Paul, “I thank my God each time I think of you and when I think of you, I think with love.  It is right to do so, because you hold me in your love.”  My prayer is that we’ll let our love overflow more and more.  Holding back doesn’t work.  I learned that some time ago with our second family of foster children – Beverly and Walter.  When the first 2 children we had left, it hurt so much, unconsciously I tried to protect myself from giving and receiving love to the new ones.  I learned that it felt actually worse when they left because I felt guilt as well as grief!   And I learned love is a very renewable resource.  The more we love the more we’re enabled to love.   So you see God’s many good gifts to us.  How can we accept those with rejoicing as Paul suggests, even in difficult times?   Someone once gave me a beautiful butterfly – it’s colourful wings catch the light and shimmer.  It’s long been for me a symbol of transformation.  I thought of a cocoon.  It might seem stuck in the unkown.  But what wonder comes out of it, if everything is allowed to unfold as it ought.  I also remembered driving this spring, and seeing geese walking across the road.  Many of you know my crazy sense of humour!  I started thinking about what if geese had to walk all the way North!  They would have died out long ago.  I could plod along, grudgingly making the best as one can if they’re grim and grumpy.  Or I can soar.  The choice is mine.  Grudging, plodding.  Or soaring.  Somewhere in there, I got unstuck.  It doesn’t make it easy, but it is possible!   Transformation.  Does the tiny caterpillar know all along in the darkness that this is only part of something wonderful to come?  When we’re in the darkness, wanting to burst out, we don’t know what wonderful things are to come.  So we’re called to trust they will come.  And look for them. It’s not easy, just possible - with God’s help.  My love will be with you.  The blessings and love of God will be with you.  Thanks be to God.