Focus, Fulfilment, Freedom, and Fun

 

‘Now be thankful for good things below
Now be thankful to your maker’

From the 1970 single ‘Now be thankful’ by Fairport Convention

 

Focus, Fulfilment, Freedom, and Fun.

 

I think that this is what I am looking for and beginning to experience in this new season of my life that is called ‘retirement’.

 

I know that I have reflected on all of this in months past. I initially felt somewhat ‘dislocated’ (as I described it) when I first retired.

 

Then there was the puzzling over what it meant to be retired from my full-time employment as a Minister of the Church while still remaining an ordained Minister who is called to serve.

 

I am still in the process of thinking all of this through, but – as I begin to disengage from those rather stressful aspects of work that have somehow continued even beyond retirement, I have also been afforded the opportunities to continue doing those things that I find fulfilling and have been given additional openings to develop some new roles which allow me to share some of my experience.

 

In brief, I am finding my new found ‘mentoring’ roles very fulfilling, and I continue to find a great deal of satisfaction in leading worship and preaching.

 

So, I guess that this sense of fulfilment is due to the fact that I can focus on these roles without the distraction of some of those aspects of Ministry which I tended to find draining or stressful.

 

And that brings me to ‘freedom’; I am now free to step aside from the draining and stressful aspects of Ministry that being in a full-time paid role required me to do, and focus on the fulfilling and satisfying things, because I now have the freedom to do so. Indeed, I have the freedom now to also indulge hobbies and pastimes and even be a grandparent!

 

And all of that feels rather like fun!

 

And that’s another thing. I am discovering that having fun is… well… fun! And it is ok too. And it is ok to have fun serving God and people.

 

Now, as I said in another recent post, I recognise that I have not always been good at letting people know when I am having fun, nor at expressing the positives nor at sharing gratitude.

 

But, I am learning. So, I am thankful for freedom, focus, fulfilment and – yes – fun!