Our favorite definition of stewardship is “everything we do after we say 'yes' to God.” Stewardship for us has been believing that because we have been made in God's image, we are stewards of all creation and, as stewards, we have been called to be faithful servants. Stewardship has been a lifelong journey and we have been allowed to choose whether or not we will be intentional managers of our time, our talent, and our treasure or to deny whose we are.

Giving was a part of our lives early on. We grew up in the same small town in Texas (Port Arthur), Bob as an Episcopalian, and Mary in the Presbyterian Church. Bob has wonderful memories of a 9:00 Sunday morning worship service primarily for the children — a shortened service with Sunday School following at 9:45, a children's sermon, and a special offertory time (for the adults, too — Episcopalians never pass the plate twice!) Mary remembers that in her family all of the children had their very own offertory envelopes. And, each was given an allowance of 15 cents — one nickel to save, one to give, and one to spend — a great training ground for financial stewardship!

Over these past 40 years, things haven't always turned out the way we expected and our prayers haven't always been answered in the way we asked, but our lives have been made rich by God's abounding grace. The world has begun to slow down a bit for us and we have had a chance to see things with new eyes—quiet days together; running into Mary's dad while out on errands and having the time, just the two of us, to stop for a leisurely lunch; hearing the first cry of all our grandchildren; having all three of our children enfold us with loving arms just when we needed them most; being given this parish family and our amazing college students here at the Chapel of the Cross.

Ours has been a journey given to us by a loving God, one filled with purpose, meaning, and a sense of satisfaction: a life of faith, a gift given by grace, that in the end will be like no other. God has always been with us and always will be even as we are born into a new beginning — a life hereafter that we, for now, cannot even imagine. In the words of the Prayer Book, may the God, whose loving hand has given us all that we possess, give us the grace to be faithful stewards of His bounty.

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