God's Leading

It is hard to believe that it has been 7 years since God brought me to a little town in the middle of nowhere named Elnora. I remember coming over to the Daviess County Fair as a elementary school student at Bloomfield to ride rides and eat cotton candy. At that time I never dreamed that I would call that little town home.

In August 2002 I came here to work with the youth part time, but God had other plans. Two weeks after my arrival I was preaching. I felt like a child getting dropped into the deep end of the pool in this little town of Elnora. I had never had nor had I understood the pressure and the responsibility that a Minister faces.

A Minister faces sleepless nights & early mornings, he tries to comfort parents who have lost children, wives who have lost husbands, and husband who have lost wives. He sees marriages fail, families torn apart, and kids used as weapons in senseless and selfish battles. He sees how cancer kills his friend, and turns that friend into just a shell of what that they once were. Then after cancer claims his friend, he has to comfort the grieving widow, all the while he has to deal with his own loss.

He sees the ugly side of addictions to alcohol, drugs, porn, pride, and adultery. He knows that his friends are on a path to destruction but they refuse to listen to the council of someone who loves them. He sees the ugly side of "Christians" who would rather gossip and slander him instead of encourage him. He is left scratching his head and trying to figure out what God is up to, and how he fits into that plan.

Yet for all the difficulties God always provides moments of hope and blessing. When a preacher gets a wordless hug of thanks from the newly widowed. When he gets a note that says thanks for teaching me that God's ways are better than my old ways. When he sees a young person who comes from a broken home and has parents that don't care about them, yet they make the choice to follow Jesus. When the preacher sees the surprised look on his friends face when he shows up at the hospital right before the surgery so they can pray together. When you have preached the worst sermon of your life, and a little old lady comes out with tears, kisses you on the cheek and says "God, really used you today sonny" When you have the honor of performing the wedding of a couple who are in love, then going to the hospital a year later to celebrate the birth of their first child. Those good moments make all the sleepless nights, early mornings, and days of heartbreak totally worth it.

I would have never understood that it if it were not for God dropping me off in the deep end of the pool, in a little town called Elnora.

That is why Wednesday night August 12th was such a sad night for me and my family. That is why Sunday August 16th was a day that I dreaded. I offered my resignation as the Minister at Elnora Christian Church on the 12th to the leadership, and it became public on the 16th.

I will never forget the lessons that God has taught me using ECC. Some of those lessons were painful, some were easy, some difficult, but all were necessary.

On October 16th, I will leave the little town of Elnora, and when I leave, a little piece of my heart will remain.

God has a new adventure planned for my family and I, we will be moving to Alfordsville, where I will serve as Minster at the Christian Church at Alfordsville.

This was not an easy decision, but we believe with all our hearts that this is where God is leading us. As servants of Christ we must go where He calls us, because He knows best.

So we go with a sense of sadness, but yet with a sense of peace. Sadness because we leave friends and family that we have come to love. We go with peace because we know that God has spoken and we are listening. It has been my experience that when we listen to God, peace follows.

I will Blog more later.

TTFN
Randy