Finishing Up My Church Job!

Before I launch into my stories today, I want to say a very happy NINETY-FIRST monthiversary to Ryan! I love you and am SO THANKFUL for how well you love me. Life with you is always a joy-filled adventure, even when days are chaotic/hard/confusing/surprising/etc. Thanks for choosing me every single day.

And now...on to today's regularly scheduled stories.

Last Friday was my last day working at our church, and I wanted to share with you a little bit about the end of that adventure.

If you've been reading here a while, you might know that the whole church job was something of a surprise. Ryan and I had been heavily involved in lay ministry at our church for a couple of years, and there was honestly a little part of my soul that thought working at the church was exactly the next move God had planned for me. (You know...when I sat around and tried to figure out what God was going to do next. Do you do that too? No? Just me?) It just made sense. We were co-leading small groups, I was leading the women's ministry, and I had prayed that if it was a good fit, God would open a door for me to work there.

And He did! Just not in the way I expected. The day before Thanksgiving last fall, I got a call from Pastor Stan, asking if I would be able to/interested in covering for Abagail's maternity leave, which was coming up  just about any day! Ryan and I talked and prayed about it, and we decided it was a sweet provision from the Lord and we would welcome it.

So for three months, I filled in for Abagail - and we got a new senior pastor during that time - and then everything went helter-skelter. The day before Abagail came back, they decided to keep me full time in a cobbled together position of this-and-that. The day after she came back, we started hearing words like virus and quarantine. So I worked from home, and then they brought us back, and somewhere in all of that, Pastor Stan (the one who hired me) announced his retirement and Pastor Liz (the one I served as part of my cobbled-together job) announced her retirement.

And then...well...you read the story. God led us in a totally different direction that did not involve me working at the church at all.

Because everything about the six month adventure was so disjointed, this was the strangest exit to employment I've ever had. It wasn't bad. It was just different. Because I never truly had ownership of anything in its fullest capacity, I didn't really have to spend as much time grieving and processing like I have had to do with previous jobs. That has (and will continue to) come with other parts of life, but not with work.

Even though I may not have been able to have a strong connection to the job, I did grow to love the church staff SO MUCH, and I will miss them dearly. They were so good to me in those months, helping me figure out all the million things that only Abagail truly knows, and swapping dozens of stories with me in between phone calls and stubborn copier adventures.

And they made the last few days so sweet for me.

I never truly moved into my office, so I didn't really have anything to move out. But Jenny had been so kind to put my name on the office sign, so I had to get a picture with that. :)

I tended to be the target of a variety of practical jokes from a couple of the pastors. On one of my last days, one of them decorated a window with sticky notes that said "Bekah was here." Sigh.

The next to the last day of work, the office surprised me with a party!! They lured me to the front under the guise of sitting for Abagail so she could run some errands. Except...

And then I found out RYAN was there!

Abagail (who has a culinary degree) made these AMAZING cupcakes. I was SO SAD when they were all gone.

And the whole office had gone together to get me some gifts - so sweet!

One last group pic!

And here's the story of my last day of work.

Back in the days of quarantine, we had our staff meetings via Zoom. One day, I wore this shirt, and it made Pastor Stan laugh so much. Even though that happened like two months ago, he remembered the shirt and said I should wear it on my last day. (The dress code was very casual, so jeans and t-shirts are allowed.) I told him that on my last day, I was sitting up front for Abagail again, so I didn't think it was probably the best idea.

He said he didn't care. He still thought I should wear it. And Ryan dared me to wear it. So...

Pastor Stan was so happy. (And so was Ryan!)

Back at the same desk where I spent my first days. It seemed a fitting way to end.

And the very last photo!

Even though it was a different kind of job and certainly a most unexpected season, I am grateful for this job. I learned, I made friends that I'll keep for always, and I will treasure that!