Amazing. Precious. Glorious.

Four Sundays.  It has been four Sundays since I last heard my husband preach.  Four Sundays since I taught a Bible study.  Four Sundays!!  “How has it been?", you might ask.  Well, I’m glad you did ask!  It has been Amazing.  Precious.  Glorious.  There are definitely benefits to ‘retirement’ (and I put the word ‘retirement’ in quotes because I am not sure he is really ‘retired’….I keep thinking God has something up His proverbial sleeve and that He is about to reveal it any day now!!)

A few days after his last Sunday we flew to Colorado and just got home a couple of days ago!  God provided a house for us to stay in for over three weeks in the beautiful Rocky Mountains with no plans and no agenda.  Amazing. Precious. Glorious. 

 

We spent those weeks simply being together, doing whatever we wanted, listening to the Lord, re-connecting with each other and with long-time friends, doing our own thing on our own timetable, going to a church where we knew no one and going to a church that a friend has planted in the Denver area.  It was the first time in over four decades that we have had more than one Sunday off.  Amazing.  Precious.  Glorious.

When got home Saturday night the decision as to where to go to church came up once again.  Where do we go?  Honestly, this week was easy.  It was Ernie’s birthday so we would go to church with our daughter and her family.  Makes perfect sense.  We will worship together and then to go lunch together and celebrate his birthday.  It was while we were walking in to that church that so many benefits of this ‘season of retirement’ flooded my mind! 

Just in case you are wondering if retirement is a good thing….here are just a few benefits:

1.      I did not spend Saturday night alone.  (Ernie spent every Saturday night at church praying or doing whatever was needed for the next morning.)

2.      We drove to church together.

3.      We walked in to church together hand-in-hand.

4.      We sat together and worshipped together.

5.      We were not the last people to leave and he did not lock the doors.

6.      That night I was not stressed about who was or was not there or what so-and-so said or did not say!

Now I am fairly certain that for some of you these are “normal” things that you get to do every Sunday.  You always sit together in church and drive together to church, etc.  but for us….this hasn’t been the case.  Therefore, it is Amazing. Precious.  Glorious. 

Needless to say, so far this ‘retirement’ has been great!  I have loved having my husband around….granted we are theoretically only on day two of the real ‘retirement’ world….but so far, so good!  Amazing.  Precious.  Glorious.