Today I went to a funeral at Westover UMC in Raleigh.
The service was for Carol Hines Watson.
Carol was a strong, talented, Southern lady who possessed faith, foresight, & leadership. She was a charming lady:)
She was also the mother of my good friend Anne.<\/p>\n
Twenty years ago my family left Westover UMC. It was heartbreaking to leave that church but circumstances pressed us, ushered us (and over 100 other friends), to pack up & move on.
Suffice it to say that our basic beliefs were being tested (Carol & husband Roy left with us, then returned to Westover friends after a time)<\/p>\n
I had not been back, til today.
I must say it was humbling.
Time heals much.
Regrets & unforgiveness have been erased long ago.
A sense of melancholy overcame me (besides grieving for Carol’s husband Roy & Anne).
Why?
Maybe it was how things should have been or could have been at Westover.
Maybe it was because Keith & I grew spiritually while there (with Kenneth Sexton as pastor & precious Rosamond his wife).
Maybe it was that twenty years had passed so quickly.
Maybe it was because my children were born while we attended Westover & spent part of their childhood there.
Maybe that our New Life Class was such a precious tight knit group for many years, & we were sent out to worship separately.
Maybe it was all the above?<\/p>\n
I firmly believe God has a purpose for all things, so when doors are closed & other open, when our lives take a turn in mid-stream where we’re so comfortable & we’re driven to another part of the river, there’s a reason.<\/p>\n
I admit it was a sweet feeling to see Rev. Kenneth Sexton in that pulpit again:) Did twenty years melt away?
For a few minutes:) <\/p>\n
I’m a better person for Kenneth, for those years at Westover, and for being nudged to another place where people of faith love & care for one another–I’m at Peace:)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I went to a funeral at Westover UMC in Raleigh.The service was for Carol Hines Watson.Carol was a strong, talented, Southern lady who possessed faith, foresight, & leadership. She was a charming lady:) She was also the mother of my good friend Anne. Twenty years ago my family left Westover UMC. It was heartbreaking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1308,"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions\/1308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whisper.rps.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}