Trigger Warning: This conversation touches on sensitive topics, including infant loss.
There is a season…..
As I write this article, I am looking at the beautiful orange and rust leaves on the cherry blossom tree outside my study window. The striking colours in this autumn season remind me strongly of how this tree changes throughout the year, from the bare branches of winter to the sprigs of hope in Spring to the stunning blossom that appears in May.
This tree symbolises my ministry, too. From the excitement of ordination in November 2010 to the celebration of many new members about to happen in November 2024, via the despair of dealing with the challenge of a 10-year fundraising campaign to build the Wellesley Centre, plus the changes required in the pandemic and the endless building delays, I know the feeling of watching the leaves fall to the ground and seeing only bare branches.
Illness in my family, the loss of loved ones, challenging behaviour and difficult people to deal with have seen me exhausted – mentally, physically and emotionally. I’ll be honest and say that I have cried, shouted and even screamed at God. The question: Why? Has been on my lips and in my mind on more occasions than I probably realise. Recently, I cried out, “What’s the point of all of this?”. It was during a walk on a beach, full of exasperation and emotion, and I understand why people feel that winter is a permanent fixture in their minds.
However, I have learned very powerfully that the seasons keep changing, and so does our life in the Church. In a week, when the blows came one after another…. some new people came to worship. In a month where I doubted my ability to put one foot in front of another….. some more people came along to worship and brought their four lovely girls with them. In a year where all I was presented with was moans, complaints and negativity….. we celebrated 325 years of service by an Elder, a Young Church leader and six Guild members.
I looked at the face of a new Elder being admitted and saw the tears in their eyes. I sat beside someone who had been told their spouse was dying and witnessed their grief. I led a new members group and heard people telling me about the joy they had found, the inspiration they had experienced and the love that they felt since coming to our church. I’ve seen these people make commitments and offer to help and hear them speaking with joy about their faith and the fact that this church family feels like home.
It’s then that I realise that Spring has already come [yes, I know it is only October!] and summer is on its way. God is at work, and He is there beside me in the shouts and the cries, as well as in the new shoots of faith and, more than anything else, the hope that comes from having the privilege of serving in ministry.
Rev Gillian Paterson
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Early on in my ministry, I found a call to the ministry of death and dying. I could see the gospel hope and comfort we brought into these situations, and my first charge, Springburn, regularly conducts around 180 funerals per year. To say I hit the ground running would be an understatement. My first funeral was a two-year-old child who had died after ingesting illegal drugs. It was a baptism of fire, but I hoped I had made a difference for this family, and I was blown away by the girl’s older sister, who was only 11 and gave a beautiful eulogy for her sister.
Funerals came thick and fast, and I would often veer between sadness, stress and comfort eating, but I knew I had been called to this. God was there. Then, 2019 happened. I conducted 10 baby funerals. Funeral directors want someone they can trust to conduct these funerals. I remember thinking, “I wish they didn’t trust me quite so much”. I knew, though, that each of these grieving families had been guided to me by God and kept faith that there was a plan in all of this.
The penultimate infant funeral that year was conducted with my good friend and Funeral Director, Laura. Laura was almost at full term in her own pregnancy and was due to go on maternity leave. I remember saying that I was glad all was going well for her and that she would soon be blessed with the birth of her wee girl.
Laura gave birth to Eilidh on the 3rd of March 2020, and after five hours, Eilidh passed away. I conducted her funeral, and it nearly killed me. I was glad to be able to be there for my friend and her family in this horrible time, but when I left the crematorium, I collapsed into the arms of another funeral director who held me up while I sobbed.
Covid happened and didn’t make things any easier. More infant deaths came with double the adult funerals, too, including my own father. It sounds enough to make anyone never want to conduct a funeral again, but I found God breaking through. Suddenly, families I had cried with over the loss of their baby were asking me to conduct their wedding or baptise their newborn. I had shared their grief, and now they wanted to share their joy with me and God.
I also watched Laura and her husband become fierce advocates for baby loss support and make a huge impact on the lives of people going through what they went through. They now have two more children, and I love watching them grow up.
I recently said in a sermon that I despise the saying, “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle”. It is life that gives us the challenges and we are there to find God walking alongside us in those dark nights of the soul. Have faith, Brothers and Sisters, that what we do is treasured by people going through their own dark night, and the thing with night is that the dawn will break through. God is always walking with us, and I know that I continue to be blessed with contact with all the families I have worked with. Ministry is a challenge, absolutely, but it is also such a blessing too.
I still visit the grave of that first infant funeral when I can and thank God for my journey so far.
By Rev Brian Casey