In every transition

5:30 a.m. Today's project is to make transitions in ministry and in family life.

After many years focusing on Women's Ministry at church, serving in leadership at Bible studies, retreats, leading specialized ministries at both Harvest Christian Fellowship and my current church, Calvary  Chapel Moreno Valley, I will return to my "first love" of  service to Jesus, teaching children at 3rd service Children's Church.  That is the first ministry I was ever involved in when I became a new believer in 1980. It was such an honor to be asked to be a Sunday School helper for my mentor Bonnie York's kindergarten class! I'd been a helper in the first Vacation Bible School my young son had attended the summer before. Knowing I'd been called to teach women, Bonnie took me under her wing and I became her substitute teacher at the Harvest morning women's Bible study, and later taught it. but I never lost touch with teaching God's word to children, because I spent 8 years teaching  in Christian schools. 2 Timothy 4:2 exhorts,

"Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season."

If The Lord, doesn't call His church up to heaven in the coming year, I intend to teach my Summer Bible  Study in a friend's home, and will be actively participating in studies at church. After Jesus and my family, my dearest love is to study and apply the word of God. Our Savior Himself said, when giving His disciples and followers the right priorities, in Luke 14:26-27,

"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and yes, his own life, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does no t bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple."

11:50 p.m. Speaking of parents and family, another, sadder transition came this evening. After a day of my very ill, but still ambulatory father not answering his phone or my daughter Heidi's knocks at the door, I went to his house in Redlands, unlocked the door, looked down the hallway and saw him seated, stretched out in his walker, both feet on the floor, with his upper body leaned back. Upon close examination, although the Lord told me he was dead, I saw his head rolled over to the side like a baby sleeping crooked, with a calm expression on his face. Daddy was at peace.

"My" plan had been to place him in a skilled nursing facility, with his doctor's approval and signature, after his appointment next Tuesday, to be cared for, cleaned up,  dressed, and let us all come to say goodbye. I had already seen an attorney to set up a conservatorship, because my dad had not  changed his clothes in a month, kept his doctor appointments, nor had he paid to fix the plumbing that was in deplorable, unsafe condition. But Daddy beat us to the punch, escaping his earthly shell and all difficulties. The next few days of making arrangements will be hard, but no harder than watching the morticians roll his wrapped, sheeted body out to the mortuary van.

At each transition, whether exciting, like my quest for directorship with Mary Kay, or concerning, like the recurring tennis elbow/arm that makes even this light typing painful, I need to look up, not around! I'll close with Psalm 121:1-2,7-8.

"I will lift up my eyes to the hills;
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
...
The LORD shall preserve  you
    From all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
He shall preserve your
   going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and forevermore."