Happy Holidays!

This isn’t exactly a traditional “Christmas letter,” but with such a long silence on our family blog I thought it time to share an update and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

This has been a tumultuous year for the Carnes family.  We have moved to a new city and both have new jobs.  We sold our beloved home and left our former churches in the capable hands of other United Methodist pastors.  Whew.  Hard…but also exciting!

  

We were fortunate that in a difficult economy our home sold quickly (despite the water main breaking right in front of the house) and we still consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have had some really great neighbors in that neighborhood!

I did a lot of the packing, of course, but the actual move and the initial unpacking and setting up of our new home was on Carrie.  You can see that she had her work cut out for her when the movers left that day.  I was off in Chicago working on my final summer residency for my Doctor of Ministry.

My doctor of ministry is in preaching so my preaching each Sunday is part of my education and my education is affecting my preaching in very real ways.  I’m loving it!  When I got back from school I was in my first Sunday in my new congregation, Collinsville First United Methodist Church.  Carrie had already started the previous Sunday in her congregation at “Journey” a church start of Belleville Union UMC.  Carrie is appointed by the bishop to be the associate at Belleville Union, but she seldom works in Belleville.  Her primary work is in Freeburg, IL at Journey.

The Collinsville Church provides a parsonage in which we live.  We appreciate their hospitality and we are constantly working to make it ‘our own’ and when that involves painting…we thank the trustees for being so accommodating! 🙂

One way that the church showed hospitality and generosity, both, was partnering with us to put in a fence for our dogs.  As you can see from the picture of Jack, above, the dogs are loving it.  While we miss our former communities, friends, and congregations, we have found new places of love and support.  Also, being in the Saint Louis area allows us to be near to Carrie’s family.  We’ve been able to participate in family events and be with our nephew.

It was also fun to be near the total eclipse and we were fortunate to be able to go down to the lake and go out in the boat for the eclipse with other family and friends.  One of the highlights for Carrie was our purchase of half a hog.  Not only did we get the traditional cuts of meat, but she got some of the organs and she is excited to experiment with the hog head.  I have to say…I don’t know.

Lastly, we both had the opportunity to go to a preaching event at Garrett-Evangelical in Evanston in November.  We enjoyed an evening in Chicago before it began and immensely enjoyed it.  I think that is just about all that is fit for print.  We are preparing for the holidays and look forward to our time with both sides of the family over the next few weeks!

House Renovations

We’ve had to do some work on the house, lately.  It’s one of those things that snuck up on us.  Since we moved in three years ago, we’ve intended to get the front steps tiled to match the porch.  Soon after we moved in a pipe leaked into the basement and we had to tear out a wall so the plumbers could properly fix it.  That wall has been torn up ever since.  Some plaster cracked in the bedroom and we needed to get it repaired.  We waited too long and the crack became too big to do a simple repair.  We looked around and realized that all these small jobs had turned into a huge job.  So we called a handy man and dug deep into the wallet.

Our relationships are like this.  Maybe a person gets angry and yells at their spouse, but if we talk about our feelings…process what happened…then that “small crack in the plaster” can easily be fixed.  Maybe a person really messes up and breaks trust with a parent or child.  They say that they will pick them up or take care of them, but, then, the person forgets or chooses not to. It’s like the basement wall, though: If we get in and repair it correctly…and rebuild trust right away, we can get back to enjoying life and it may not have to cost us so much.

With any relationship issues: ignoring the problem is not a good option.  The longer we ignore the problem, the bigger the problem becomes.  Sometimes, when we don’t properly talk through our smaller problems the relationship breaks down and soon it is far too expensive to repair.

With our house, I think we caught it in time.  We had to use quite a bit of savings, but our house is nearly all fixed up: even better than when we moved in.  If you have a relationship that has broken down, don’t wait any longer.  Get to work fixing the pain and begin the process of rebuilding trust.  I think you will find that it is worth the risk, time and expense!