This weekend was such a wonderful, but emotional weekend. It started off by me saying goodbye to my working in the secular world. I loved working for Ameriprise especially after I left my old boss, and it was hard to say goodbye to this group. Each of them brought such wonderful gifts to the table and they truly loved working with each other. They also enjoyed having fun at work, especially email Bingo! It all seemed surreal, I was going through the day but nothing really seemed to be happening until I gave security my badge. I depended so much on job, both financially and mentally, that to just up and walk away from it to start this adventure really was a challenge. When I got home and my boxes were there with my stuff from my desk I realized that my work career for right now is over.
Then on Saturday, Matthew and our friends Patty and Terry hosted a wonderful party for me. It was wonderful to have people over to celebrate and to say goodbye. I was ok until I started reading the cards, it was so wonderful to know how much that people care about me and it was so touching to read their support for me. I then had to say goodbye to a wonderful friend of mine, Rosie. I met Rosie when I was with the Crosiers and we have been friends since. We meet often at the famous Cafe Latte for her egg bake and my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She told me she was leaving and I went to give her a hug and she said we will book our breakfast for December. This hit me that even though I am going to be in California for a few months/years my home really is here in Minnesota. The party kept going on with me running like a chicken with my head cut off, because I wanted to talk to everyone. After the party died down I sat near the bon fire we built with some people from work as well as Aunt Roberta and Maggie. We laughed and laughed and had a wonderful time picking on each other as well as picking on me. What a wonderful Saturday!! As great as Saturday was I knew that Sunday was going to be hard.
We got to church on Sunday and I was already feeling anxious. I had been the youth director there for close to 7 years and I love this congregation so much. This congregation has been so supportive of Matthew and I since we started going there and I was about to leave. Everything really was going normally until our priest Katherine+ called me and Matthew up front. I she handed me a bag to find a tie-dye T-shirt that said "Property of St. Luke's-Minneapolis" I could not help but to laugh, this congregation knew that this was a hard time for me and they wanted to be sure that I could laugh when I really needed it. However, there was more, after Katherine+ tripped and fell (she wanted to take the spot light off of me) she handed Matthew and I two beautiful Pipestone crosses. Pipestone is a rock that only Native American's can mine and sell, this rock is very sacred. This is when the waterworks just started to flow. It was so beautiful and it was at that moment that the church again was filled with the Holy Spirit. The congregation started to say a prayer and I felt this level of peace fall over me and again I knew everything is going to be ok.
After the service we went into a wonderful coffee hour where the congregation signed my shirt as well as shared in a wonderful cake (decorated with chili peppers) as I was talking to people again I realized that I am not leaving forever, I will be back in December.
I need to keep this mentality as I go through this process even though I am living in a different state Minnesota is my home, I am just taking a few months off at a time to be somewhere else.
Peace,
Jason Lucas
