On Sunday April 22nd my nephew Luke confirmed at the Freedom Lutheran church in rural Janesville MN.\u00a0 My sister (his mother) and I were confirmed there, as was our father and our grandfather and many other members of my dad’s family.\u00a0 \u00a0While I’ve long since moved away, Freedom will always hold a special, if sometimes conflicted, place in my heart.<\/p>\n
Freedom is a small congregation.\u00a0 I think I was related to 2\/3 of the folks attending this morning.\u00a0 Granted, many of them were there because of Luke, but quite a few of them are regular members, and I would guess that on a typical Sunday I might be related to a solid 1\/4 to 1\/3 of the attendees.\u00a0 There are a lot of family memories inside this church, including baptisms and confirmations and weddings and funerals.\u00a0 The adjacent cemetery is the\u00a0final resting place of a long list of family who were a big part of those memories.<\/p>\n
For a time as an adult I lived very close to Freedom yet much to the chagrin of my dad (among others) I chose to attend services elsewhere.\u00a0 I had a lot of reasons for that decision, too complicated to get into here.\u00a0 I don’t regret choosing the church I did as it was a wonderful place for me during some of the darkest times in my life in a way that frankly, a church all my relatives attended simply could not have been.\u00a0 \u00a0But every Christmas Eve I was at Freedom watching my cousins in the children’s service.<\/p>\n
When my husband Pat and I got married I moved to Iowa.\u00a0 There were a lot of reasons why I was the one to move, including uncertainly with my employer at the time and he owning this home while I was renting.\u00a0 I originally joined a local Lutheran church.\u00a0 A couple of years ago I made the decision to leave the Lutheran church and join the Methodist church.\u00a0 Again, I had a lot of complicated reasons for doing that, but again I am very happy with my choices and I know I’m doing what’s best for me and my faith journey.\u00a0 \u00a0But still, every Christmas Eve I’m at Freedom.\u00a0 My niece is 6 and this Christmas Eve she will likely be the only family member in the children’s service.\u00a0 Will I still go after she’s confirmed and I no longer have close family participating?\u00a0 I can’t say for sure, but a big part of me says yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Sunday April 22nd my nephew Luke confirmed at the Freedom Lutheran church in rural Janesville MN.\u00a0 My sister (his mother) and I were confirmed there, as was our father and our grandfather and many other members of my dad’s family.\u00a0 \u00a0While I’ve long since moved away, Freedom will always hold a special, if sometimes conflicted, place in my heart…. Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20,27,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","category-its-all-love","category-warm-fuzzies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t