Finally, the Lesson

What a week this has been. Not wow, what a great week, or drat, what an awful week. Let's say a weird week. Busy in some sense, leisurely in others, stressful in all.

Last Saturday, the 1st, we moved my mother-in-law, Esther Barnes, from her own retirement apartment to an "independent" living apartment at the Concordia retirement center here in Bella Vista. The physical move went well; the emotional move not so much. Her son is in from Santa Fe, staying with her and doing much of the work. My wife hasn't been particularly well the last several weeks, so there was limited things she could do. I was away the week before the move, and had my week back in the office afterward, so there was limited stuff I could do. Plus we had the rogue March sleet/snow storm in the midst of this. Consequently, everything went slower than expected and it was just yesterday, Saturday March 8, that we finished all at the apartment and could officially declare the move "over". Of course, our garage is filled with boxes and unneeded furniture, waiting to be sorted and sold or discarded. What a mess.

Part of the problem was the mix of strong and weak personalities. Lynda's brother is a strong personality. He keeps telling his mother what to do rather than asking what she wants to do. That's fine for some things. Esther is beyond the point in her life where she wants to make a lot of decisions. But some things, such as "Do you want this table or the other? You only have room for one at the new place" should be decided by her, not dictated by someone. If she doesn't want to make the decision, so be it.

Consequently, emotions have been running high this week. The three strong-willed parties have been at each other's throats at times. Each of us has taken time out, the others have said nothing, and we all went back to the work until it was done. Of course, it's not done until Esther feels fully comfortable in her new place and until our garage is usable again for its intended purpose. That, I imagine, will take weeks.

But tomorrow, all will at least in part return to normal. We will be back in church tomorrow morning. We missed last week due to the frozen-stuff storm. Lynda missed the two weeks before that, sick the second and away the first. So it's been four weeks since we've been there together, and two since I've been there. Actually, that week was a special week for our Upwards Basketball program, so we didn't have Life Groups. It's been three weeks since we were met as a Life Group.

I miss it. It is a highlight of my week. Most of the time on Sunday I post something about church and Life Group, as I did last Sunday during the storm. I gain inspiration from the worship service, the fellowship with friends, and the study of scripture or related items. The study we're in, in Ephesians, has been quite worthwhile and uplifting. I've missed it the last two weeks, and missed the people in the class.

This week I haven't re-read the scripture or made any notes for teaching. It's not my week to teach, so I've kind of slacked off. Last night I should have taken some time to do so, but there was writing to do, books to read and DVDs to watch. On Sunday morning I review the scripture, skimmed the Matthew Henry commentary, and did some preparations. I'm actually writing this before class, for scheduled posting, so, while I'm not scheduled to teach, I don't know whether my veterinarian co-teacher will be called away on an animal emergency and I'll have to teach. That will be okay if I do. If a group of mature Christians can't pull out a passage of scripture and discuss it for an hour, with a competent group leader, then something is wrong with them. So, even if I have to teach this, with limited, immediate study, I think I'll be okay.

Any way, a return to Life Group and worship tomorrow will be a good ending for a stressful eight days. God is good.