"Bite-Sized Pancakes"
At the cafe hall on my seminary's campus was, for most of my first two years there, a titanic giant of a fellow named Don, who would make the breakfast dishes for folks--pancakes, hash browns, omelets, that sort of thing. He had a quirky sense of humor and would often vary our portion sizes as a way of good-naturedly messing with us. To that end, pancakes that I would get from him would come in all sorts of shapes and sizes--sometimes I'd receive a tall pile of small, dollar-sized pancakes, other times I'd get just a couple, but they'd be as big as my face. Or, a combination of all sizes in between the face-sized behemoths and the bite-sized lilliputians. But all of the above elicited consistent joy from me.
As I began to get settled at seminary, I began to see the bite-sized pancakes as metaphors for all of the little, brand-new aspects of my new life at seminary--the things I quickly became very grateful for that stuck out to me as a stranger in a strange land, but were so small that they might have been taken for granted otherwise.
And I've felt the same sort of thing at work in my first year here--that as I've continued to grow accustomed to living and ministering here in Longview, I have had those sorts of bite-sized moments that stand out to me as things to cherish rather than take for granted or write off as inane--like seeing that giant squirrel statue on my way to work, or being able to write sermons down by the lake on a sunny day.
So if you were to ask me what has helped me grow into my role here as your pastor, I would tell you...it has at least partly been the bite-sized pancakes.
What are those little things that keep you going and remind you of God's joy and presence in your life?
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Eric
No comments:
Post a Comment