The Door is Closed

The big office clean up happened at 6:30pm last night. And yes it was difficult to sort through and pack up but it was the final chapter in the book. Some might say that it must of been good to do this or some might say that it was the finale and I believe that both statements are true. The crew to help clean were Jack's brother, Bud & Marlene, our good neighbor Kevin who had his van and years of experience of moving things and my son-in-law, Cecil who had his truck to take away the bookshelves.
While Bud & Marlene worked on packing up the books, I helped Jack sort through nine plus years of binders, papers, gifts, photo's etc. Was it tough - you bet it was. The memories were overwhelming for both of us. But yet we managed to keep it together while we did this.
While it was tough to do this, it was tougher seeing some folks at the church that had a harder time coming to see us and say "nothing" or just "goodbye". When I hear "goodbye" I know that this means, we won't see you again, or the door is now closed and we know you won't be back. And that's okay for me. As change has to happen and it won't if we are still there.
To the folks that wouldn't come out to say good bye, good luck and remember God is always watching!
As we settled into our home last night, we talked about the relief of knowing that this last bit has been handled. The books and papers neatly piled in the old office, the keys turned in, the lights turned off and the door closed. However, we know that we have not closed the door to Jesus. Somewhere amongst the hurt and disappointment in how this whole thing was handled, we will go on to continue to want to follow in Christ's footsteps. We will still reach out to others in the areas that we are both gifted and we know that we will make a difference, just somewhere else.
I know that this is not Sunday (my hardest day of the week) but I know that my soul has started to heal and the more that we read together and talk about things, I feel that I am soon ready to go back out into the world of believers.
We have had several invites to go to a variety of churches and one that was the closest to our hearts, was from a family that left Maryvale. This young family took the time to correspond and encourage us! Hard to believe in some ways, but after reading the hurt they experienced and being able to relate to them, we have to believe that there are still good people out there. And in my last message to them, I expressed how we might just show up in the lobby of there new place to worship, and we would be there because we want to all be fed spiritually together. After all, isn't that what church family wants - togetherness in Christ?