One Sunday morning in October it became clear that after fifteen years of service to our church, it was time for my husband to hand in his resignation. Though we had seen this coming, the realization gutted us.
Five months later, he packed up his office and we said a tearful goodbye to the congregation. He was now not simply without a job. We were without a community. Without the surrogate aunts and uncles who had loved on our kids. Without the friends we had prayed for, cried with, and walked alongside.
These were not our only losses.
Three days prior to that pivotal Sunday morning, we buried my mother-in-law. She died in her mid-seventies after a lightening quick battle with pancreatic cancer. Within the next few months, my father and two other close relatives were also diagnosed with cancer. Additionally, though we didn’t know it at the time, our eldest son had just spent his last summer with us. Two years later, he would be married and living in the midwest. Launching a child is not nearly the same as losing a parent, but it is a loss nonetheless.
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