When I retired, on the advice of wise counselors, I decided to take 6 months away from any activities that felt like work. Writing musings, which I love to do, was included as one of those activities. As hard as it is for me to believe, 6 months is now over, and it’s time for me to start dancing with the keys again. 

On August 1, 2024, I retired after 28 years of full-time Pastoral ministry in Florida and moved 945 miles north to Mechanicsville, VA. We picked this place because we are now 30 minutes from our son, daughter-in-law, and four of our six grandkids. In the last six months, we have lived through an absolutely gorgeous fall and are in the middle of our first northern winter in 28 years. I had forgotten how much I love all the seasons. Now, in mid-February, with snow falling outside, I find myself becoming impatient for spring to come soon. I remember feeling this way somewhere in this time frame every winter.  

If there is one thing that has come home to me since I retired, it’s the truth of the old adage: 

“Wherever you go, there you are”. 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have had some significant internal transitions as I moved out of the rigors of very full-time work and away from family, friends, and the network of connections I have been blessed with in Florida. Not surprisingly, the single dynamic of retiring that I’m most aware of is that I no longer have to carry the weight of the burden of the church with me 24/7, 365. I have found the lack of external structure and deadlines both a blessing and a hardship. I have become aware that there is also a good amount of personal status, recognition, and affirmation that comes with being the Pastor of a strong church that is absent 945 miles north of Estero. In any church I attend in Virginia, I am just another pretty face who happens to be there that Sunday. Retirement has also contained its share of unanticipated valleys and dry places spiritually as I have been adjusting to this new reality. 

From a practical perspective, I can see that all of those adjustments are a natural part of the transition that goes with retirement. And please don’t misunderstand. I have loved most of it, and it has been really, really good for me. I honestly had no idea how incredibly tired I really was until I stepped away and was quiet enough for it to hit me. I have been months recovering my stamina and expect it to take more months to get back to a full sense of myself. While I have missed the people a great deal, I have not missed the work (including preaching) at all. (at least not yet) I am only just now starting to think in terms of preaching whole sermons again.

But what has stood out so plainly to me through all of this new season of my life is . . .I am still just me. 

I’m still ADD, just now with home projects instead of work projects. 

I still think in stories and sermon illustrations. 

I’m still struggling with my weight.

I still jump into whatever I’m doing with two feet. (It’s currently gardening)

I’m still prone to self-doubt.

I still pray best in a rocking chair. 

I have not lost my talent to occasionally annoy and be annoyed by my beautiful spouse. 

I’m still self-motivated and a get-it-done plodder. 

I’m still prone to finish projects to 90% completion and then leave the last 10% forever because I have moved on to something else. 

I still have experienced a deep richness with Christ and am able to hear his whispers. 

I still too often flee to old ways of soothing myself if I get stressed out. 

I am still broken and beautiful, sinful and forgiven, lacking and enough, already and not yet what I could be. 

Wherever you go, there you are. 

It’s why God told Samuel in 1 Samuel 16 that he doesn’t look at the circumstances or the outward appearance but looks at the heart. It’s why Jesus said in Matthew 15 that things that defile us come from the heart. It’s why God cares more about your character than your circumstances. It’s why the whole purpose of discipleship is to remove your heart of stone, hardened by sin, and give you a heart of flesh to make you more like Jesus. In his mercy and love, through his grace and the power of His Spirit inside us, God goes beyond treating our symptoms. 

Because wherever we go, there we are.  Think about it.

Yours in the journey. . . Tim