How Was Your Sabbatical?

“How was your sabbatical?”  I was in Minneapolis at the EFCA headquarters this past week for two important meetings.  This was the first question from my friends as they saw me in the hallways.

I had to pause a minute to think about that.  First, I pointed out I technically have two more weeks, so I’m still on sabbatical.  Second, I reiterated it wasn’t much like what I had envisioned but it was everything I and my family needed it to be.  My mother passed away a few days before the sabbatical began and my mother-in-law passed away last week so my sabbatical was basically bookended by the passing of two significant people in my life.  That meant being there for my family and having them there for me.

As I thought more about it I pointed out that my availability for my family in this season, I’d like to think, would have been roughly the same if I had not been on sabbatical.  The big difference is that because our team knew I was on sabbatical they had already adjusted their life and schedule in ways that did not factor me in.  My focus on the family did not impact anyone else on the team as it would have done if I had not been on sabbatical.  For that I give thanks.

As my sabbatical has unfolded I have become more comfortable with the fact that while there are a number of things that did not turn out as I had imagined and planned them, God has given me some great uninterrupted time with family and with Himself that are irreplaceable.  I have been more “there” for the early weeks of my youngest grandson’s life.  I have been more “there” for my father as he adjusts to life in SoCal instead of northern Idaho.  I have been more “there” for my wife as she has navigated caring for her mother and caring for our grandchildren.  I have been more “there” for my mother-in-law during her last days here.  And I was definitely more “there” at the moment she passed from time into eternity.  Much of this I would have missed had I been working, but I would have also missed more if I had kept to my original sabbatical schedule.

How was my sabbatical?  The final tally isn’t in, but the voting is heavily leaning toward “not much of what I originally wanted” but “all of what I really needed.”  The remnant of my original plan for the last two weeks, based on input from several friends who have taken sabbaticals, is to lay pretty low, spending time relaxing and refreshing.  That’s the plan.  We’ll see how that works out.