You two really amaze me! You have accomplished so much in your very brief time as husband and wife. I am so proud of you! I am also so glad that you are looking into the possibility of moving to the U.S.
God had spoken to me in one of my prayer times last year and told me to start preparing the Vicarage. I am not surer exactly why, but I do think your return is one of the reasons for the preparation.
So I have started to prepare.
The project continues in April with new gutters and the stone porch repairs. We are also going to redo the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms.
I bought a new mailbox yesterday. I am trying to do little steps everyday to make the house ready for your coming.
I am getting Gramma ready for the move to the next door neighbor’s house. We are so blessed that the neighbor has agreed to rent to us for the eight weeks we have to be out. By the time you get here it will be a whole new house.
I know almost no one calls you that little one. Most people know you as Abigail.
But that has never stopped our family from coming up with our own names for each other. Most people will probably always call you Abigail. Most people call me Pastor J. Most people call your Aunt Pastor Amanda. But you ‘Lella and Sevy call me “Oz” and you all call your Aunt “Francine” instead of Auntie. So I will call you “Yve”.
I think having secret names for each other is very biblical…..Revelation 2 does say, “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.”
Who knows maybe “Yve” is your secret name from Jesus….probably not….but I could be being prophetic again. It has been known to happen.
I am so glad that your parents have chosen this point of life for you to move here so that I can see you grow, so that I can be part of your lives from such an early time in your growth.
I am so glad you will know me and Francine and Great Gramma. I am so glad you will grow up knowing Winchendon and the Vicarage and especially Cornerstone Church! There is so much living to do yet and we get to do it together.
My goodness! How time is flying. When I was younger I always heard about how time went faster the older you got. I never believed it, but now I know it is true.
It seems like just yesterday we were picking flowers in the gardens at the Vicarage. But that was months ago now. Today we are getting ready for our second block buster storm of the year. Your dad is getting ready to get stuck any work again, I imagine, and we are all knocking ice out from under the wheels of our cars so they don’t shake when we drive. Those are minor hardships of winter.
I suppose some people think that your old Oz is just a guy who hangs around waiting for Sundays so that I can preach my piece and then sit down on Monday to write my next Schtick. But this season really does move ministers into action.
I was in prayer this morning when one of our congregants called to borrow heaters from the church, for their garage, which was full of water from a burst pipe. Next on my agenda, as the storm approaches I have to get groceries for the Vicarage and for another lady in our congregation who is shut in. Then there are the calls to make to several of our elders whom I have not heard from since our last storm over the weekend.
Y’know ‘Lella this job…it’s busier that any other job I have ever had, but there is so much joy in it…. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I hope when you grow up you can find the joy I have in your life’s calling. I guess that is the message. Don’t just work a job. Live out a calling. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it unto the Lord.
We have not met in person yet, but I hope that is soon remedied. I love seeing your little face on Messenger every time I talk with your parents and I am amazed at how fast you are growing. It is hard to believe you are almost 5 months old now. Time really does go faster the older you get and compared to you I am OLD. Time is moving really fast for me.
Joseph Elon Lillie VI, Joseph Elon Lillie VII (Sevy), and Kristine Barrameda Lillie
You know, I have not written a note on the Vicarage since you were born. For a while I thought I might close this site down as my time became so limited with this new position as lead pastor of Cornerstone. It has taken me a long time to figure out how to carve out even a little time to get back to writing (which is one of my great loves).
Even though I love writing I have found that this last season of life has been so full of wonderful things (your birth is one of those wonderful things) I just couldn’t pull myself away to write even a few words. But then in prayer this idea came to me.
One of the reasons I write is to create a legacy of words which will carry our family into the future. I want you and your cousins, your parents and your aunts and uncles and I guess the whole world to understand how we got here and what I think this whole thing called life is all about.
Sevy, I hope we get to meet in the next few months. I know your parents are working hard to try and get back here to the United States. If all works according to plan you will be staying here at The Vicarage by next fall. By then we should even have fully functioning bathrooms that do not leak every time you turn on the water. That will be nice! So far the project is going exactly to plan.
How much have your priorities changed over the past twenty years?
In answering that question I think I have to say the priorities haven’t really changed. The way I go about them has for sure. The main thing is still the main thing. But the way I live out the main thing…that has changed tremendously.
In the “old-timey” days an appropriate farewell as you sent loved ones on their way was “Godspeed” or “Godspeed your journey”. In the ears of a younger J that phrase actually sounded like “May God help you to get things done quickly. May God speed you along and help you get lots done.”
I am guessing that I am not alone in that inaccurate transliteration of the Victorian Good-bye. It actually means “May God prosper you along your way.”
The problem with my interpretation of the phrase is that God doesn’t speed. He’s not fast as some consider fastness and He is not slow as some consider slowness. Speed….for that matter time…. doesn’t really figure into His equations. It’s not that He is not conscious of time. It’s that He is in control of it and so it really doesn’t mean much to Him. What does mean something to Him is purpose. God’s speed is determined by what He needs to accomplish not by how much time He has to do something in.
Twenty years ago I was a young pastor. I had a lot of “ideas”. I was pretty sure that God wanted me to do all of them. It’s not that I actually asked Him about my ideas. It’s just that I was sure my ideas were good ideas and so they must assuredly be God ideas. So I set about serving Him out of my ideas and for good measure I even added in a bunch of ideas other people had (even though they really hadn’t talked to God about their ideas anymore than I had). I loved God so, I got busy. I got distracted. I got lost in the shuffle of good ideas and eventually life hit me with a giant pause button.
Twenty…plus years out from that young whippersnapper I am older and hopefully wiser. I have learned to wait in prayer over my “good ideas” realizing that most of them are not God ideas. I still love God. I am still busy just with fewer things. I have learned or am learning to clear my plate. I am learning to live by a rhythm of prayer, rest and work. I am learning I can’t do everything. And I am learning that God’s speed is about His purpose not about how fast something gets done.
I am learning that, like our project at The Vicarage: The delays in life are just as important as the forward momentum because in them, we delayed individuals learn how to be human beings rather than human doings; Everything is about seasons that bring change and completion; And that if I wait long enough beauty begins to emerge from the mess, not all at once but piece by piece.
I have also learned that sometimes serving God is as much about taking a small dog on a walk through the leaves as it is about building a house. God speed is about God’s plan not mine, about God’s pace changing mine.
We have walked through weather and permitting delays to get to this point. At last the project has begun! Here is one last look at The Vicarage.
Here it is as of today. I am very please by the state of the wood underneath the shingles. We got to it in time.
Most of it is solid like this wood here.
As of today the crew has finished stripping the front and the sides of the house.
The goal is to strip the back tomorrow and then begin reinsulating and weather proofing before beginning the siding. With luck they might be done but the end of next week. Then we can do the trim and the gutters and the stone porch!
If you have been following along, you know that we have been planning a big home renovation project for the Vicarage for the last several months.
The supplies for the shingle project, the gutter project and the painting project all arrived a few weeks ago.
The windows are 4-5 weeks out…I imagine they are stuck on some boat off the Pacific coast right about now along with so many other folks stuff. Supply chain problems…Yay!
Things were supposed to start on Monday, and then Tuesday and then Wednesday…but RAIN! The rain stopped yesterday and so the construction team was finally ready to go for today and of course this was my day of big meetings. Then I got a call from a pastor I went to dinner with on Monday and found out…yep I have been exposed to COVID….No symptoms, but my doctor suggested that because of the closeness of the contact I self quarantine until I can get a test. That cannot happen until Friday afternoon
Here’s the thing God knew in advance that all this would happen. The product delivery….the permit delays….the rain delays…and the COVID exposure. As I look at it these next two to three days are perfect days for me to be forcibly stuck inside to help Mom as the construction crew tears the outside of our house off.
THIS WHOLE THING is God simplifying my choices.
Here’s the question I have to ask myself. Why does God not trust me to simplify things for myself? OUCH!
These last several weeks have been full of living. The Vicarage project has been delayed by permits and weather, but that is probably a good thing. I have been so busy with God’s work these last weeks I am not sure how I would have handled the pace if we had the house project in full swing.
God really does know what He is doing! I am coming to accept that His timing is perfect and waiting is a good thing
There are lots of irons in the fire…..lots of pots on burners….and yet the peace of God is what is controlling me these days. I guess I have come to the realization I am not supposed to put all the irons in the fire at once. I am not responsible for all the pots on all the burners. I am one guy. I am one part of the body of Christ here in little Winchendon MA. The body is responsible for the irons and the pots. I am responsible to equip the body to handle all those irons and pots (well maybe not all of them but the ones we are called to).
This week as I was in prayer God told me He was going to show me many things that were to go on in the world but that I needed to be careful not to allow what He showed me to distract me from what He had told me to do……otherwise……
He has called me to lead the church to Doing Life Together and to discover our gifts. He has promised that if we did those two things He would help us to reach the lost, send the found and change the world!
I have come to it over the last several weeks that there are several pots I have been trying to get on the burners….several irons I have been hoping to put in the fire that for the moment will just have to wait so that I can fulfill the current call of God.
My book is one of those irons or pots. I am realizing that I will not have the time to finish it and do the work set before me. So….for the moment I am putting this pot back in the fridge….this iron back beside the fireplace. Maybe someday, but not today.
I am also realizing that the delays in the Vicarage project are giving me a better pace. These projects have to happen, but the idea that I was going to get all the work done in these few short months….well that just doesn’t seem to be in the proverbial cards and maybe that is in keeping with the plans and purposes of God.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE PLANS YOU HAVE THAT NEED TO BE TAKEN OFF THE BURNER AND PUT BACK IN THE FRIDGE FOR THE MOMENT?
Since I have nothing to report on the Vicarage building project I thought I would show you these mushrooms that have sprung up at the edge of Boat Garden.
Everything is in readiness for the project to begin but the town building inspector is on a two week vacation and so our building permit is stuck in committee somewhere until he returns on the 18th of October….Ah yes it is the double edged sword of living in a small town. It is easy to know all of the town officials if you want to, but that is because there are not a lot of them, and no one to replace them when they are gone. Delays and mushrooms that is what we have here right now, but that is how God works. There is purpose in all things. Yes even in delays…and yes even in mushrooms.
The dumpster and port-a-potty hav arrived along with the new gutters and siding.
Now that the rain has stopped, the crew will be arriving today (or maybe tomorrow) to begin peeling off the old shingles. So take one last look.
I have been trying to get my part done for this project which is clearing the porch and the edges of the house so that the crew can get at the shingles.
I have set up a little seating area on the edge of the wood for prayer through the project.
Notes From the Vicarage 