So I walked to church for my meeting with Pastor Doug, it is such a nice walk, long enough to get you moving but short enough not to overwhelm. I walked in and ran into Larry our parish administrator, yesterday was his birthday so I wished him a “Happy Birthday”. He said “how did you know? Blabbermouth?” “of course.” (blabbermouth would be PD) I followed Larry to the office asking where he was anyway. I asked Larry how old he was and we got onto a conversation of early graying hair, since his has been white for years. Pasotr Doug came down the hall finally and we went to his office to talk.
I told him that I would do MOPS for one more year if I changed it from the traditional MOPS group to a MOPS@ group. Which involves much less work for me therefore much less stress. I was very detailed about what i would not be doing this year: getting there an hour early every month, decorating the room, planning for hours for meetings. I would however keep the group open (which is what he really wanted from me), I would come a bit early and make coffee and bring a snack for moms as well as chocolate. My friend Kim from church and MOPS has agreed to help out as well. I was very explicit that I would only do this for one year and that if we can’t get someone to take it over with less responsibility next year it would still close. But I would do my best for one more year. This is going to be a long year for me. I just felt that the Lord wasn’t done with me and MOPS quite yet. Pastor Doug had also guilted me a bit about closing the group. That was another thing I told him he wasn’t allowed to do was to guilt me if it closed after one more year. I also informed him that with a much smaller group we could not do as much fundraising and the church might have to pay the charter after this year but that i would try to do at least one. Most likely the Lenten dinner which is fairly easy and makes us decent funds. He is happy, I’m feeling a bit stressed. I think that the women will be happy, I”m not sure how in the world I’m going to do all this for another year. Please pray that I can without dropping the ball to often.
The rest of our visit was him catching up with me on my family and general talk about issues. We have theological discussions on occasion that are really nice. A brief one we had yesterday was about fertility, I believe the Lord is in control of that and he believes that we were given the choice by God. Especially since we are Lutheran. One of the reasons that I am Lutheran actually. I do believe that the Lord gives us choices and that we aren’t supposed to be automatons following rules just because they are there. I think one can miss so much good in life and others by seeing things in a black and white world with rules of right and wrong.
