As of Valentine’s Day, the day of the official end to 50 years of ministry in our area by Good Samaritan Society-St.Croix Valley that was brought about by the purchase of the nursing home by Plainview Health Partners, I was out of a job. Chaplains were cut from the employee roster.
I didn’t hear that from the new owner, who has not connected with me yet, but by phone from my colleague, fellow chaplain Chuck Arndt. He had a face-to-face with the new owner.
Fortunately, the Lord has been preparing Marina and me for this possibility. I serve Wolf Creek United Methodist Church quarter time and have fairly frequent fill-in opportunities at other churches. I still do a quarterly series of national ads for a client of more than 30 years standing. On top of those things, our downtown Osceola office building is supposed to close for its sale on March 1st and the bedroom and additional downstairs room we’ve added to our Bone Lake cabin is close to being finished. In the event that finances force a consolidation and a move, we have a place to go that we enjoy already.
So the plot thickens. What I would like to see is a gigantic uptick in sales for my short stories, both the Kindle versions and the paperbacks. I am grateful for the two days of unstructured time I now have and I’m praying that I will use that time wisely. One thing that may happen is that I may be able to produce more fiction; much creative energy lately seems to have gone into sermons, rather than into stories.
So we shall see. I, for one, will be staying tuned!