MinistryReimagined

I have started my job.
And yet I feel I don't really know what I'm doing.

Several months before seminary ended, I wrote in my journal that my calling was to those inside the church who felt no one cared. The church can be an awfully cold place at times, and I longed to serve those who needed God's warmth. I envisioned the little old ladies, long since forgotten for their compassion. I saw children, their perspective ignored in worship. I dreamt of divorcees whose pain no one noticed. And they're all here. But they are welcomed!

******* 3 hour lapse here************

The phone rang and one of those "noticed" parishoners' mom had died just thirty minutes before.

In my haste to get to the family, another family called to tell us that their daughter was having an emergency C-section to protect the baby who was not doing so well.

And added to my list before I could get out the office door was a man having heart surgery this afternoon.

I spent the morning caring for these and their families. I cried with the daughter; rejoiced with the family of a healthy baby boy; prayed with a frightened man.

I returned to the office exhausted and emotionally spent.
It was then that I realized it.
The people here feel cared for because we take the time to care.

If I do my job excellently, no one will feel that no one cares because, in fact, someone will.
And someone does.