Newsletter

Goodbye- by Tara Atherton

I don’t even know where to begin. How does someone begin something, knowing that it’s the end. It’s like reading a good book, and you reached the last chapter. You want to read the ending, but you know when you get to the end, the book is over. In a few days, I will be closing my book as the Hammond Presbyterian Churches Administrative Assistant. I remember how nervous I was on my first day in the office. I snooped around in filing cabinets that I now know like the back of my hand, brought a kids foam bed, bottles, toys and a blanket for my baby to snuggle on, who is now almost as tall as I am at 10 years old. 10 years. This June would have been my 10-year anniversary at the church, and I am saying goodbye just before that. My office has seen so much. It has seen me laugh, cry, scream, and be quiet. It has seen friends who have come and gone. Some of my most favorite memories have happened here. These walls have seen so much love. Love. I have loved this job for such a long time. This was my home away from home. My children grew up running through the hallways while I was folding paper bulletins. But with every good story, the ending must come. What does that mean though? Where am I going? Why am I saying goodbye? When will all this be happening?

As I pack my office up, I came across an art project that my daughter did in Sunday School. It’s a water painted picture of a tree and it says on the paper, “Happy are those who…find Joy in obeying the law of the Lord…They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up…Psalm 1:1-3” I have decided to leave my position as the Church Administrative Assistant to find my joy again. For a while, I have stopped looking at Church as the place that I want to be at to help fill my soul. I started pulling away from my church family, because I started to view everyone as work. I never wanted my family to be a job for me. I want my family to love and support me the way I do them, and the only way I could see fit to do that, is to take the job component out of my life. This was not an easy decision. I did a lot of praying these last few months. If leaving the church was wrong, God would show me a sign, right? I had seen a couple of signs but ignored them. I wasn’t ready to see the signs yet. If I’m a character in God’s book, he would have been shaking the book and screaming at me. Third time was the charm though. I start a new adventure on the 23rd of March, and I am so excited. I am so excited to have my church family back to being my church family again. Just because I am no longer the Administrating Assistant, doesn’t mean that I will no longer be apart of Hammond Presbyterian Church. If anything, I think I can give back more. So, even though this is goodbye to my services as the church Administrative Assistant, I will never say goodbye to the Church family that I love and adore. 

*Peace be with you all*

  For behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
-Song of Solomon 2:11-12

In late February, I received a package in the mail containing 5 Martenitsa. In Slavik countries, the first day of March is Baba Marta ('Grandmother March') Day, and people give these small tokens, often red and white, to one another in anticipation of spring. When you see a traditional sign of spring - a stork, swallow, or blossoming tree in the Balkans, with variance in other places to allow for local climate - you leave your Martenitsa behind and welcome the nearing end of winter.

March has certainly contained a few moments that feel like signs of spring so far, most of which have been immediately followed by winter forcefully saying "not yet." But I have my Martenitsa in my pocket, and I'm remaining hopeful for that first bud, that first green shoot, or that sound of sap dripping into metal buckets that tell me life is returning to the land once more.

This year in particular, it seems like all the world is yearning for that return. Ramadan, Purim, and Lent have all overlapped as periods of penitence after which we are assured of coming renewal. Talk of spring and "false spring" is near-constant. It's like we're all holding our breaths waiting for that return of sun and flower and gentler weather. And as we do, we are also moving toward a season of celebrating the one who will one day make all things new, bringing the new life that does not fade with the turning of the seasons.

Let us walk together into newness and life this spring.

Blessings,

Pastor Shea