Thinking back… About three years ago, God gave me that song called God’s Plan… This song was in celebration of the merge of the new church, United Disciples of Christ, and the words are the following:

God’s plans are wondrous, so full of surprises,

He places "start" and "end" side by side,

God opens windows as doors are closing,

He yearns that we will in His love abide.

Refrain: Remember Jesus was the Living Sacrifice,

And in His dying, our sins He bore,

But then He rose, yes, a new beginning.

For all God's children - evermore.

Life is full of gains and losses, full of changes and transitions,

And each challenge can help us each to grow -

God, please help us simply to die to ourselves,

Make us vessels for Your love to overflow...Refrain

So together we stand, facing toward the new

A beginning yet to be revealed,

Let us seek just what God desires to make of us.

Let us walk into God's field... Refrain

Bridge

There's no beginning, without an end,

There's nothing new without a past.

There's no beginning, without an end.

Except for God, the First and the Last! ...Refrain

Now, about three and a half years later, we are discerning an ending and a beginning for each of us and United Disciples Christian Church. This song has been spinning around in my memory during the past week – and speaks again to what is in our midst. It’s been a struggle, it’s been painful, it’s been a time to treasure the joys and love we’ve experienced here. And now we stand at another crossroads, never to be the same again.

Whatever we are led to do, by the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, it will be a new beginning, letting the past go, laying it gently aside, to embrace what lies ahead. There is reassurance in knowing that our God understands us so well – the difficulty in coming to this decision, wanting what He desires for us, trying to figure out what that is. God also understands so well how something must end for something new to begin. Jesus had to die in order to arise and begin anew. He had to bleed and be broken, laid in a tomb, in order to claim victory over death – a Resurrection which brings hope and salvation to all of us who claim Him as Lord of all. Jesus as human had to end, in order to live forever, for us to live forever, together, in God’s Kingdom.