Stuff I Would Be Doing...

...if this were a "normal year."

In past years I would have spent the last two weeks of December developing sermon outlines. It was always nice to start the new year weeks or months ahead on sermon prep. This year is different. I'm not devoting time to writing sermons because, quite frankly I don't know who those sermons would be for, nor when those sermons would be preached.

 All I've really done the past week or so is cook and clean. I may have a backup vocational option as a domestic waiting for me. But after Steve (and Sarah) and Kaycie (and Ben) leave us to return to their own homes, it's game on for Deb and me.

Next week it all begins. I'll be giving away books, and packing up the ones I don't. I'll be making multiple trips to the dump. I'll likely be delivering donated furniture to an in-patient mental health facility, taking our vehicles in to insure they'll be Alaska ready, and figuring out what absolutely, positively must be fixed before we turn this house over to new owners. (With a house built in 1912 it's a certainty everything needs to be fixed.)

And I will prepare to deliver a sermon, my final sermon for the church we will be leaving. That will be fun, and hard, and gut wrenching, and joyous. And I will pray for the people God may allow me to pastor in the future; unknown to me, but fully known by Him. All I know is that those people probably live in Alaska.

And I will continue to pretend life is "normal," even though it isn't and won't be again for quite some time.