We arrived back in Cocoa on Monday late. Up early on Tuesday to get ready for our annual Ladies Christmas Party. It was a time I so looked forward to. We had, as I best remember, about 125 women at the party. We brought cookies to exchange and gifts for our (as I remember it being called then) Chinese Gift Exchange. By now, we had done this for several years and we had quite a number of people who brought hand made gifts and by this year there were some people were ready to ''fight'' over! The one that was the greatest hit was brought by Roxanne M. She had brought a wooden cut out of a Christmas Stocking with a doll head "hand painted". It was adorable and everyone wanted it. But there were so many others that were ''swapped'' around a pretty good bit. The first person (who always became the last to pick) had her choice! It was a great time nd we always loved those get togethers. I wasn't ready to give those great times up to start all over again. It seemed every time we moved with the Lord in a new ministry (which was not all that many times, this was our third move) it looked like a ''back ward step''. Course HE always brought us back and more everytime he moved us. But this move He was asking of us was way more than just starting over. It was leaving EVERYTHING and going to a ''foreign'' place; and so far from everyone we loved, knew and cared about.
We had our Christmas parties and our GRAND Christmas Banquet, the largest ever! Those two were highlights of our ministry at Cocoa First. Then came the New Year and somewhere in the month of January 1993 I was making our bed one morning and all this was going on and on in my mind. SO! I stopped making the bed, picked up the phone and called our ''home pastor's wife" Myra Railey. She and Crawford were still in Panama City, Florida at St. Andrew Assembly of God. I called her KNOWING she would understand what I was facing and would surely agree Tim was just going through ''something'' and to give him time and he would get over it and we could get on with our ministry. Well, I made the call, shared what was going on in tears when she STOPPED me in mid sentence and said, "Elaine, you know if the Lord is telling Tim to make this move, then you have to be willing to move". THAT WAS NOT WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR! I 'suddenly' ended THAT conversation, hung the phone up, not so gently, and declared standing there by the bed with a pillow in hand "GOD, I AM NOT GOING TO PINE RIDGE AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE ME!" And seeing as how it is now 17 years or so later and I am writing this, HE did NOT strike me with a lightning bolt. I had learned many years before that God knows and sees the heart so you might as well not try and 'gloss anything over' or hide anything from Him! So I didn't. AND He stepped back and did NOT make me do anything. Now, have you (if you are a true follower of Jesus and know him intimately and know his prompting and leading and voice) ever had him just 'step back and leave you alone'? I for one can tell you that is a hard place to be!
Now, this is January, NO one knows the turmoil I am going through except Tim and God. I have NO one to talk with. I couldn't share my fears, my confusion, my turmoil. And God wasn't doing a whole lot of talking to me either. I was stewing in my own thoughts and they were constant. I continued my long days at the church office. I planned meetings, worked on the music ministry. Hey we were pastors of a church bouncing around 400 and 500, three Children's Churches, three Nurseries, a going strong Youth group, a strong Men's and Women's ministry. Weddings every time I turned around and LOVED DOING and a worship team of nearly forty! This was a ''preachers dream church". We had volunteers all over the place and everyone loved us (well pretty much everyone) and I was loving my ministry and we were all like family! I was closer to those folk than my blood family. I and a couple friends planned our ''annual Sweetheart's night out". This particular year we pulled together an "Elvis" impersonator, one of our worship team members Jack who looked and sang just like Elvis, and Earl who sang just like one of the Temptations. This was at the Cocoa Beach Country Club where 50 couples came. It was a time to remember! Then we Celebrated Easter and immediately began putting final plans on our annual Mother/Daughter Banquet. This too was always a great hit from the very first one we did. The men always did the cooking, serving and most of the cleaning. Summer came with all the weddings then it was time to prepare for Thanksgiving and Christmas again. And through all this I was experiencing panic attacks with severe chest pains, with no one to talk to. So somewhere in all this during the month of September 1993 there was a Pow Wow at the community college. Of course Tim wanted to go so we went and it was so, so hot! I left Tim and took our little grand daughter Alexis home where it was cooler and let Tim visit. Close to four o'clock that Saturday afternoon it was time for Lexy and I go pick up her Papa. We left the house, and while sitting at the traffic light at Michigan Ave. and Clear Lake Road there in Cocoa I heard the Holy Spirit 'wisper' in my heart, "Have I ever called Tim to do something that I didn't prepare the way and prosper the work?" I KNEW IT WAS TIME TO GIVE IN. We picked Tim up and I remember we went to eat Bar B Que at Fat Boys in Rockledge just south of where we lived. I told Tim there, "if you really think this is what God is wanting you to do, then let's do it". I went home with a happy man!
A few days later I was vacuuming our living room. Suddenly I was NOT in my living room, I was standing in a vastness of Blue/Gray and standing in front of me close enough to see his face only there was a Native Man with chin length hair, dark tormented eyes with a tortured look on his face. This man was standing there and behind him were two other men which I could not see their faces. This man close to me that I could see pointed his finger at me and said "YOU WOULDN'T COME". And just as suddenly, I was in my living room stricken with the thought, "I'm not going to stand in eternity before God and this or these men are going to stand before me knowing they were going to hell because I couldn't or wouldn't leave what I loved to share Jesus with them". I sat down on the hearth of the NEW fireplace and cried.
part 2 of Part Two continued....
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