For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. 

— Ecclesiastes 3:1

Friends, my season here as a columnist is coming to a close. Today is my time to say goodbye. It has been a deep honor and a wide joy to share this space with you over the last five years. However, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. It is time for me to step aside to allow another voice to come forth. 

I have spent my time here writing, in one way or another, on the theme of hospitality. How we receive one another, make room for one another, welcome each other in. I am profoundly grateful for the ways you, dear readers, have hosted me and my words. Thank you! And now, together, we make room for another with the anticipation and joy of which true hospitality consists.

As I considered this season coming to an end, I sensed the sweet Holy Spirit whisper kind words to me: Daughter, your labor was not in vain, and your fruit will remain (1 Corinthians 15:58 and John 15:16). 

Friends, I speak these words to you as well, for whatever season you find yourself in: Your labors are not in vain, and your fruit will remain. 

My husband and I just returned from several weeks in Germany. We were on a pilgrimage to the land of my 10th-great-grandfather, Paul Gerhardt, a beloved pastor and poet (hymn writer) from the 1600s. 

Gerhardt lived during the time of the Thirty Years’ War and bubonic plague. He was orphaned by the age of 14. His home, church and entire town were burned to the ground in the war. His wife died after only 13 years of marriage. Four of his five children died in childhood. 

And, after faithfully serving during these devastating times, he was, at the age of 60, removed from office for not bowing to the political power of the day.

I wonder if he felt his efforts were in vain. I wonder if he questioned whether his life truly mattered. 

I think he would be shocked to know that his songs are sung the world over. That there are streets, churches and even a hiking trail bearing his name. Statues of him dot the German landscape. 

He’d be floored to find there’s a library full of his materials, a museum dedicated to his life and books penned about him. 

How would he feel knowing some of his words were used in a Bach cantata? That others gave courage to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in a concentration camp? That still others provide comfort to me, his distant descendant, to this day?

I look at a photo of Gerhardt hanging in my home office and long to tell him: Your labors were not in vain, and your fruit remains. 

While in Germany, we also reconnected with friends who first came to us as young adults, partnering with us in our life’s work of hospitality to international students. We hadn’t seen many of them in about 20 years. Now grown up, with families of their own, they told us of how our lives have informed theirs. 

I think on this now and I hear the Spirit whisper yet again: Your labors were not in vain, and your fruit remains. I hear it also, over my decade of work in a retreat ministry, my temporary position at church, my role as a mother and my current labors of love. 

Your labor was not, and is not, in vain, and your fruit will remain. Oh, the kindness of God! 

Friends, while my words will not continue here, I pray that in some small way the fruit of them will remain with you. And if, perchance, you would like more of them, I have good news. 

My first book has just been published and is available for purchase on Bookshop.org or Amazon. It’s titled Little Life Words: 60 Meditations to Soothe, Center and Strengthen Your Soul. It would be an honor to remain with you through the medium of this book. 

I’d like to thank both Anabaptist World and you, dear readers, for the ways in which you welcomed me into your worlds. I do not take that lightly. In the words of Fred Rogers, “I’m so glad we had this time together.”