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| Mongolian Wedding Tapestry |
Sometimes God is in
the details. That’s a saying I’ve heard
all my life. Details are important. I have a beautiful tapestry I bought on a
mission’s trip in Mongolia.
The tapestry itself, as a whole, is pretty, but not really something I would have
bought for my home. What sold me were
the details. It’s an antique tapestry
traditionally made for a newly wed couple.
Each stitch in this 4 foot by 6 foot work of art has been hand stitched,
the colors carefully chosen. The intricate design planned with a specific
meaning. I was captivated by the purpose behind those amazing details and I had
to have one. It’s a treasure that I
don’t plan on parting with.
When you or
someone you love needs healing and healing doesn’t come right away, it’s easy
to begin to think maybe God has forgotten you.
When we first started on this journey, we just believed for a miracle
healing to take place in Ed’s body. That
was it. I hoped every time he had a doctor’s
appointment that they would just suddenly be unable to find anything wrong -
miraculously healed- overnight.
That’s what I wanted.
It seemed like the best way, to me. for God
to be glorified in this situation. But
also, if I’m honest, maybe I thought it was the easiest way to get through this
quickly without it interrupting or changing our lives in any significant
way. Maybe it would have lifted our
faith a little, but we really wouldn’t have learned anything more than we
already knew about God - we already knew he was a miracle healing God. We’ve seen Him do it countless times.
We began to realize
that God was weaving our tapestry in different way than we would have
chosen. We needed Him to hand stitch the
details of our life with a purpose that only He could create —miraculously.
Now that we were
moving towards transplant, one BIG detail was how we would manage to keep
pastoring our church and give Ed time to recover. We were in a good season at our church after
coming through a difficult one. God was
doing some amazing things, but the ministry required all of both of us at that
time. It was an exciting time but an
exhausting time as well and coupled with Ed’s illness only made it more exhausting
for him. He was tired. We both were. And
taking a break for surgery and recovery just didn’t seem possible.
It was in the middle
of this detail dilemma that we got another phone call. The call came from a
church on the Outer Banks of North Carolina – my hometown, They asked us to
pray about and consider moving there where Ed would become the Family Life
pastor. We had received calls like this
before. Actually during the difficult season I mentioned earlier, we had
received three. We said no to all of them because we did not feel God was
releasing us at that time.
But this one was different…..
and that caught us by surprise,
As we prayed about
it, we realized that God was in this and He was working out this detail in a way
that only He could, This was an opportunity to do all the things we love about
ministry without some of the administrative duties that we don’t love! It was a chance to live a slower paced “beach
life”. More importantly we saw the need
for this ministry and we felt God burdening our hearts to do it.
We said yes.
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| Moving Day |
In the summer of 2012, we said goodbye to our
church family. We loaded the moving truck and made the fifteen hour drive to
our new home at The Ark Int’l Church in Nags Head, North Carolina, We settled into a cute little beach cottage
that the church had lovingly prepared for us.
Sitting here, over a year later,
I am amazed at all the details God put into place for us.
- What church would actually hire a new staff member who was
sick and
needed to take a break immediately after getting here? Yet this church
family welcomed us, loved us, and taken care of us through the most
difficult
time we’ve ever faced.
- He placed us near my family where we could have their
support. My mom
and dad actually only
live a few blocks away from us. My brother and his
family decided to move home
too and their jobs were provided so quickly
that they actually moved before we
did. For the first time in 20 years, we
all live near each other and it’s been
so comforting to have them close by.
- He placed us near Duke
Hospital which is rated
third in the nation for
kidney disease treatments. They have been amazing and provided Ed
with
exceptional medical care.
God was weaving our tapestry with intricate details and with
each new detail came a newer stronger level of faith. In a few months time this
would all be finished and we could hang it up, see God’s handiwork, and return
to our normal life or so I thought…
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