Chaplain's Corner

We never know what a new year will bring. We begin each New Year with the hope that it will be a good year. Many of us have events coming in 2018 that we are looking forward to: graduation, a wedding, the birth of a baby or beginning a new job. I am looking forward to retirement. I couldn’t have said that a year ago, but now it is often on my mind.

Others of us may be looking forward with a sense of dread. A cancer diagnosis with a palliative prognosis may mean that 2018 will be your last year. Some of us may be looking forward wondering if our marriage is going to make it one more year or if one of our kids is going to keep going down that bad road that we have warned so often is dangerous. The truth is, our new year will be a combination of joy and sorrow, excitement and dread and much that comes our way will surprise us.

New Year’s, for all the hoopla, ushers in new opportunities, wanted or not. Some people face the New Year in a posture of independence, “I can handle anything that comes my way this year.” But can we handle anything that comes along? Could we handle the accidental death of one of our children or grandchildren? Could we handle the loss of our job? Could we handle finding out that a young person in the family is experimenting with street drugs? Could we handle a crisis in our church, or a friend betraying us, or a financial setback that messes up our fiscal life for years to come?

As I face 2018 I’m anticipating the end of a career. For the first time in over 40 years I will not have something I am responsible to do when I get up. I went straight from high school at 18 to college. At 22 I graduated from college and went straight to seminary. At 24 I graduated from Seminary and worked for a year waiting for a call from a church. Just before my 25th birthday, I became the pastor of a small church in rural Saskatchewan. At 28 I accepted a call to a suburban church in Winnipeg where I served for 19 years. At 47 years of age I went back to school for a year to train for my present work in chaplaincy. At 48 I began my work as Chaplain at Bethesda Regional Health Centre and now, just days after my 65th birthday in June 2018, I will retire and wake up to I don’t know what.

Looking back, I’m sure you will agree with me that the path of your life is hardly what you planned or expected. Looking forward, we can be certain that it will be the same. In my life there has been but one unchanging constant – God. God, who is absolutely perfect, doesn’t change for perfection needs no change – His love, mercy, grace and commitment to my welfare has been the one constant that has enabled me to face the disappointments, tragedies, and setback of my life. But at the same time I have experienced joys that I could have never anticipated. Through it all, God has remained steadfast, the solid rock on which my life has been anchored.

As I looked to the unknown of life without a job I know that one thing will not change – God will continue to be my unchanging constant, and whatever winds may blow over my life, fair or stormy, I needn’t fear. I probably will fear, as will you, but if we look to God in faith as we are confronted by the unexpected events of a New Year His commitment to us can calm those fears. Let’s anchor ourselves to the one who never changes for he will provide for and be with us in this coming year.