 March, 2007
Summer is on the way and I hope we can all find a way to enjoy some of the days of summer even if the schedule continues to be very busy. Hopefully you won’t feel like the person who wrote the email entitled “Resignation As An Adult” (even though most of us have felt this way at times). Here it is: I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year-old again. I want to go to McDonald’s and think that it’s a four star restaurant. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make a sidewalk with rocks. I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them. I want to lie under a big oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer’s day. I want to return to a time when life was simple, when all you knew were colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn’t bother you, because you didn’t know what you didn’t know and you didn’t care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset. I want to think the world is fair…that everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little thinks again. I want to live simple again. I don’t want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and the loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow.
 So, here’s my checkbook, my car keys, my credit card bills and my 401K statements. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And, if you want to discuss this further, you’ll have to catch me first, ‘cause……..“Tag! You’re it.” Well, since we can’t really resign from adulthood we must at least find ways to enjoy our days. I read one stress reducer that said: Put a sack over your head and mark it “closed for remodeling.” I’m not sure that would help. It does help to find ways to laugh like the following statements say: “Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of the heart” or “A good belly laugh is like taking your liver for a horseback ride” or “Laughter is inner jogging”. Of course the Bible also reminds us in Proverb 17:22 that “A cheerful heart (which includes laughing) is good medicine.” Ask God to help you experience joy and cheerfulness but I do pray that you won’t leave God and His church out of the mix. I read of one pastor’s closing comments that caught the congregation off guard when he said “If absence makes the heart grow fonder, we’ve got a lot of people who must really love our church.” Hebrews 10:24-25 says: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together…but let us encourage one another.” I look forward to seeing you for worship from week to week and at the fellowship and ministry times listed in the newsletter as a part of enjoying and encouraging one another during the days of summer.
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