Rev. Linda Mootry-Dodd

John 14:15-18a (the Message)

¹⁵“If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. ¹⁶I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. ¹⁷This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you! ¹⁸“I will not leave you orphaned.

Never Alone 

The Day you have waited for is now finally happening; You are leaving home, leaving the nest. The Trunk party is over, the shopping has been done, and you even know who your roommate is going to be. You are leaving the hum drum rules and regulations of your parents, grandparents, guardians and all the folks in the extended church family. You are now free from all of the demands of the past, telling you what you can and cannot do. Or, are you?

Years ago, a sermon was preached by our pastor emeritus, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., regarding, thinking of ourselves as a “new me”. We had to think deeply of exactly what it means to be free from something. The conclusion was to be free “from something”, means being free “to something”

Your future is about to change, from the routines of yesterday, however you are now going to be challenged in every way, a new way, to begin shaping your realities of tomorrow.

Whereas the routine of household chores you were forced to do will be absent from your sight, the critical thinking , organizing and training you gained on the home front is about to be tested. You will make mistakes along the way, but don’t panic or yield to homesickness by quitting your new journey. As a child of God, you have a guarantee.

God has promised “I will not leave you orphaned”. Talk to God, listen to God, spend time in God’s presence. God will be with you always. You are never alone.

Prayer 

Thank You God for taking this journey with me, and assuring me that I will never be left alone.

Thought for the day 

For those leaving home for the first time, going to school or wherever life is taking you.