Closing Time...

Paula accidentally reminded me today that in exactly one month, I will no longer be an employee at Church of God Ministries.

Wow.
ONE month.

This kind of feels like the beginning of the end. Except it's not really the end since I will return to Anderson after Berlin. But it feels like it.

And today, I showed Kathi the invitation to one of our events at the North American Convention that I had worked on all day, and she about lost it. I'm well aware that I can get by doing the administrative stuff at work, but my passion and my gifts are in the creative side. But today, when I showed Kathi the finished project that was fairly well done, she started lamenting again that I would be leaving soon. I haven't known Kathi for very long, but I knew her well enough to know that after she gave me a hug, I would probably do best avoiding eye contact because I would not be able to handle seeing the tears in her eyes.

These are the things I will miss.
The people.

Funny how I was thinking just the other day of who I was my sophomore year when I went on my first missions trip to Atlanta. I still remember distinctly what Pastor Kurt said about how over the course of the week, there will be lots to do. "But the people are ALWAYS more important than the tasks."

Funny how it struck a chord with me then, being self-aware enough to know how task-oriented I was.

Funny how far I've come since my sophomore year.

Funny how someone up there seems to know what it really means to equip the called.

And so, now that it's closing time, I have to learn to let go of what I had to learn to love.

Funny, isn't it?