Note: Chaplain Peter Hartwig will be sharing a Daily Devotional between now and Sunday, October 13.
“You – yes, you – know that our visit with you was not purposeless.” That’s the Hartwig translation of the 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 1.
I’ve been staying with my friends Jay and Jeanne in the sleepy town of Washington, North Carolina, in Beaufort County. Jay works as a realtor and a pastor. I’ve come to spend time with this couple since I was in college. As one friend of mine says, “those people are medicine.”
What have I done since I got to Washington? Thank you for asking. Mostly, I have sat on Jay’s back porch with a cold Topo Chico and talked. Topics have included:
- Jay’s four sons
- You Greenies
- Jay’s 2024 trip to Scotland – 20-minute video included
- My 2024 trip to Hampshire
- 1 Thessalonians
- Jokes about Episcopalians
- My father’s adoption to the US
- Jeanne’s work as a professor of nursing
- A recently widowed friend
- The devastation in Western North Carolina
- How much more God is interested in who we become than what we do or, in other words, grace
Someone with a strong sense of efficiency and optimization would surely say, “Geez, Phartwig. What a waste of time…” But I think back to the way Paul talked to his friends in Thessalonica. “You yourselves know that my coming to you was not in vain.” (1 Thess 2.1)
Paul wanted his friends to think about how much good ended up coming about as a result of his visit to them. Recall, their community had hit a rough patch when a mob tried to kill Paul and put a bunch of them in prison. It might have looked in that dark moment like it all had been a waste. But it was clear to Paul that his visit to them was emphatically not a waste of time at all. It was part of God’s healing of the world — it was not in vain.
I bet if I called any number of you Greenies right now, you could say the same thing. This past week, surprising and good things have come out of this trying time. You’ve reconnected with old friends. You’ve spent quality time with your families. You might even have been able to find a kind of rest that you cannot always find in our A-to-H block schedule — and to be sure, the day is coming when we’ll be back on that schedule with its mysterious lunch slots.
But even so, these days are not in vain.
I want to make clear that I am on call. You can reach me by email or on my cell phone. If even just a listening ear would be a help, you can use mine. Until tomorrow, H.