Happy New Year, South Main

By Amy Grizzle, Minister to Adults

School Supplies!  Yes, I was the child, and am still the adult, that gets excited about school supplies.  Each summer I eagerly awaited the Sunday paper at the end of July with the Sunday ads for School Supplies!  Clean, new Trapper Keepers (do they still make those?), unsharpened #2 pencils, lots of bright, sparkling, blank notebook paper, new markers that hadn’t dried up, and of course, a brand new box of Crayola crayons (complete with the sharpener) that enticingly begged you to be creative.

As a child who could care less about midnight parties and weight loss resolutions, School Supplies were the celebratory elements of my very own New Year.  Every year, a clean, fresh start, with new tools to help me navigate and create and it made me wonder what I would do differently, what I would learn.  Each new school year was an exciting and a scary new adventure filled both with unknowns and hopes that rattled my nerves, stirred my imagination, and inspired my heart.  College and even graduate school were nearly the same experience, minus, unfortunately, the box of Crayolas.

As summer moves closer to being a memory, we all have a chance to begin again.  Some of us begin again with children away at college for the first time or with the long dreaded empty nest, some of us begin new grades or new schools, some of us begin new jobs as Sunday School teachers or missions leaders.  We’ll soon have a new youth building and soon after that, we’ll have new construction on other parts of our building to help make it fresh and bright.  We have new ideas and new opportunities to re-engage and contribute to our shared life as a family of faith.

Will you consider joining a South Main at Home group in your new year?  Will you commit to engaging in and adding your gifts to our Sunday School Communities? We all have a chance to be reminded that each day can be that fresh, bright, energizing experience that begs you to be creative, inspires you to hope for what might happen, and a chance to walk with each other through all the phases and stages of life.  We all begin again as summer moves on and “fall” moves in. For those of us who move forward with excited hearts, may we share our joy.  For those of us who especially feel the trepidation and heaviness of transition, may we hold each others’ hands.

Happy New Year, South Main.

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