The BUngee Cord 9-5-23

Hello,

I have officially been retired for one year. It’s been a year of transition. After forty years of doing something, it has taken some getting used to not doing that thing. I have had to get used to sitting in a pew listening to sermons instead of preaching them. I have had to get used to following a worship service, rather than leading one. I have had to get used to biting my tongue when someone comes to me with a concern. It hasn’t always been easy.

On the other hand, I am finding out what it is like to be able to stay up late and watch a Saturday evening game and not have to worry about being ready for Sunday morning. I am discovering the weight off of my shoulders when things aren’t going quite right in the church, and I don’t have to try and please everyone. I am enjoying having evenings free of meetings and not having my sleep troubled by the responsibilities that await me in the morning.

Thing is, though, although I may be retired, God is not done with me, yet. God is not done filling me with love and forgiveness, filling me beyond the brim of my life so that the world might experience the life-giving power of God’s grace. In fact, it was God’s overflowing grace that was spilling out of my life in all the years I was a Pastor. “We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)”

I may not be a working pastor anymore, but I am still a working child of God. I still find myself with people who are trembling in fear as they see life’s bulldozer plowing towards them, and God uses me to bring his fortress of care to them. I still find myself with folks who find themselves in a suffocating tunnel of stress, and God uses me to bring his light of peace into their lives. I still find myself with people that the world has decided to discard, and God uses me to gather them up into his heart.

And in the same way, God is not done with you anymore. God is not done filling your heart with divine mercy that is spilling out into the lives of those around you. From your first breath to your last, the faucet of God’s grace has run wide open in your life, giving you life, and giving others life as that grace spills over into the world.

Life is full of transitions for us: retirement, relationship changes, moving, financial bumps…. Although such transitions may be challenging to us, they also place us in situations where God can touch new lives through us. As I find myself fondly looking back at all that God has done through me before I was retired, I also find myself with amazed anticipation imagining the lives that will be given life as God continues to pour into me his grace and mercy all the days and years that are to come.

SPLASH!

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger (retired…lol)

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