cleaning house

This afternoon I threw out twenty-six years of ministry related magazines.  It took nine garbage bags and must have weighed a quarter of a ton.  As  I did, I remembered the loneliest day of my life--the day I packed up and left my last church.
Ordinarily there was a full-time staff of five people.  That particular week, though  no one was around, not even the secretary. Two weeks before, there was a big party for the Christian Education director, who was moving on with her husband. For me, though, there was nothing, not even anyone to help as I loaded twenty-five boxes with books, including all those magazines that I just threw out.  These boxes were all that was left of my library after I had given half of it away.  I almost gave away the whole library, convinced that I might never need it again. I was out of the church,  and for all I knew out of the ministry, too.
Later, the church did throw together a reception for us, after were were already gone. they gave us a nice going-away present, too,  some money to help and a picture of the church.  But the loneliness of that time lingers still when I think of it.  For the first time in my life, I did not know what tomorrow would bring. 
I was not forced to resign, though there were a few who were no doubt happy that I did.  I really believed my ministry there was at an end.  I was not sure at that moment when of if I would ever find another church to pastor, and pastoring was all I knew.  It was a terrible, lonely feeling to box up that office after all those years. 
My life didn't end, of course, nor did my ministry. Three weeks after I was out of that pulpit the little church I now serve asked me to preach for them.  Eight years later, I'm still there. 
But now,  they've built me a new office.  It's smaller than the one I had before, with its leaky walls and no view, so I have no more room for all those magazines.  Time to clean house.
It's a very different feeling to leave an office to go to another versus leaving and having no other. It's very different, too to leave sadly and to just leave.  But the effect is much the same, even so.  as we go through life, most of us become hoarders--hoarders of magazines,  furniture,  knick knacks, books, and memories.  Every so often we need to flush them all out and start anew.  It doesn't matter whether we are just moving from one house to another or whether we've been forced out by circumstances, there is life after moving.  We go on.  We get a new house, a new job and a new life. 
Three weeks ago,  my granddaughter Chloe moved to Davidson with her mom, and new stepfather.  She spent the night before at our house.  As she left,  she said.  "Goodbye, Grandma, goodbye, Grandpa, Goodbye dog!" Then she added "Goodbye, God." Then she changed her mind. "No," she said, "God's going with me."  I can testify from personal experience that He does.