Pastoral ministry is one great adventure. It will certainly break your heart and test your spirit, but it holds out exhilarating joys and privileges. One of the great privileges is to relate to God's people and care for them as a Shepherd, to share their joys and bear their burdens. The longer the pastoral tenure the deeper and wider the connections you can have with people. That was vividly brought home to me in a visit I had recently with a dear sister.

I got a message that I was to return a call to my dear sister who is eighty six. She is now a widow and I had heard that these were not the easiest days for her even as I had noticed that she was attending worship with less frequency. Our friendship goes back some twenty three years when I served here at Southgate as an associate. She and her husband, one peach of a guy, started coming to Southgate to help their granddaughters through their broken home. The couple had a church background of a mainline protestant sort. From the outset, on this errand for their granddaughters who had a prior history with our church, God seemed to capture their hearts with what they were experiencing here at Southgate.

Andi and I invited them to an outreach Bible Study at our home then on Overlook Drive. Her husband was taken aback by the invitation. He was such a pleasant and neat guy. He was an invader through the Normandy Beaches during World War II, albeit nine days after the first wave. As I recall, he strung communication wire across Europe following the tide that would liberate Europe from tyranny. He was a great athlete in high school and valorous soldiering just fit him. He set the state record for the high school long jump back in his day. I remember it as 19' 10 ¾"...but I would always miss it when I tried to guess as he would ask. He never forgot the length. It was embedded in his memory. He barbered and was a gifted conversationalist for years. But this valorous man wanted no part of a group discussion in Bible Study. He was first guy to come to my house and let me know that he would not be participating in the discussion in the Bible study...but he would come. The great irony was that he may well have said the most out of all in the group. I miss him.

I had the privilege of baptizing him in the mid nineties. We had by then a measure of shared history together as a threesome. He had gone through colon cancer which sent him into a deep reflection on his on journey with Jesus Christ. He got on his knees and got squared away with Christ before the surgery went down. His wife had been a prior pacesetter, having responded after a Billy Graham invitation as she began with Christ several years earlier.

I had been in their home and prayed with them and laughed with them and shared happy and sad times together. My friend who came to visit me always had such an elegant spirit about her. She is a classy gal, always taking good care of her self. She dresses well and with a quiet smile was just made for what was pleasant to be around. She was full of a sort of English-proper, but as kind and common as the best of mid-western culture. I will always remember the afternoon her husband died. He was waning in the hospital and I was just coming up to the room as he breathed his last. When I joined her she was just realizing that the Lord had come to receive her husband to Himself. I have been around those tender moments before but this one was different. She was sad and gently weeping, but she was savoring...yes, savoring. She was savoring all that it meant for her to be his wife. We sat together and she rehearsed all the ways God had blessed her in giving her Roger. She was releasing him to heaven savoring all that was theirs on earth. It was striking and touching. While deeply wounded with grief, she was greatly moved to praise God for the years they had shared together.

Several more years have past and she is going it alone...with Jesus. They had already moved out of their place into a nice condo. Her sister was close by to enjoy contact and shared errands. But fatigue sets in and memory fades out (I'm arriving forty years early to my sister) and sustaining life gets more difficult. Now was the time. She was moving to Alabama with her daughter for a season. At eighty six, it may be the closing season. God knows. We both felt the texture of what could be as we said goodbye. She told me, "I just did not want to leave without coming to say goodbye."

What a good visit we had. It was the fat of the pastoral landscape. It was sweet and affectionate. What a privilege to commit her to the Shepherd of our souls who exists and therefore, we are not left in want of anything. She will be fine and then in due time better than she has ever been.

They do not sell the treasures of relating at Wall Mart. They are on the priceless aisle of living. As she left I savored again the rare joy of being a Shepherd. It is good work that on its best days fills your heart with joy.

People matter. When will we get that? Self indulgence is self defeating and does not at all deliver on what is promised. Looking out for number one can lead you to be estranged from family and friends and living out your days in a cold sterile room at some forsaken rest home. People are life's great treasure. God knew that all along and spared nothing to send Jesus to provide us the chance of life right side up.

Pastoring is the people business. It has its own reward well before the great day when all of the final judgments will be in. May we be found valuing the right things as we live out our very few days. People are the right things and relating well is a treasure and a privilege in life.

"Shepherd the flock of God among you...with eagerness." 1 Peter 5:2