Getting Ahead: Finishing

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On most Saturdays and every day except Sunday through the summer, my dad would give us work to do. It would usually take us no more than two or three hours to do the work, but it seemed like an eternity because I had fun things I wanted to do.

I wanted to play ball, ride horses and build hide-outs or tree houses. There were always things that I would rather do than work. However, there was not going to be anything else done until the work was finished. As I got a little older, I was involved in numerous school activities and organized sports. Before I would sign up for these things I would always get a speech from my parents. It went something like: “if you start you cannot quit. You will finish what you stated!”

At the time of the speech I had every intention of finishing. It was the first and most exciting thing in my life at that time. There was no way that I would quit. Are you kidding me? Quit! No way! But as a little time went by, that bright, exciting and most important thing in my life started to dim a little. More time would go by and practice is starting to be more work than fun. Now questions were starting to enter my mind. My buddies were getting a free period while I was rehearsing. I had signed up for so many things that I didn’t have a study hall and had to spend my evening at home doing homework that I could have completed at school.

How can things that we can’t do without turn into a troublesome burden in our life once we have them? Why do we have such an experience and do it over again? Why is it that my parents didn’t seem to understand that these things were not what I thought they would be and they should just let me stop doing them? Why did I have to finish what I started?

These and other life questions will be addressed Sunday morning as “The Gathering Place Family” meets in the Washington High School Gymnasium at 10 a.m. for our Pre-Service Connection where we enjoy coffee, juice and donuts. Our Worship Service and Children’s Church then begins at 10:30 a.m. Come at 7 p.m. and be part of our Wednesday night Bible Study and Children’s Ministry on the third floor above Trends at 120 West Court St. in Washington C.H.

http://www.recordherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2016/10/pfeifer-mug-B-W-1-1-2.pdf

By John G. Pfeifer

Religion Columnist

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