GRACE AND THE HARDEST THING.

It is two minutes before midnight Sunday Evening and in one week I will no longer serve as the pastor of Birchridge Community Church. Funny how ones perspective can change when you realize you only have a week left.

How well I remember the cold night our family arrived in Kenai, Alaska. It was December the 31st of 1992 and though we had just flew across the continent and the children were tired and we were in a totally different culture I some how new in my heart this was home.

We flew in with twenty-Two suite cases and left all our earthly possessions in North Carolina. We gave our furniture away to people who could use it and literally came with nothing but cloths and a few of the children’s toys they had just received for Christmas.

I have been asked if moving to a place so far away sight unseen and relocating our children five thousand miles from their grandparents was the hardest thing I have ever done. The answer is no. You see moving was easy but staying was hard.

There have been times when our efforts seemed to produce very little results. As is often the case our church is far from perfect. There is a problem, we have people in our church. Oh, like most every church experience the first year is a cake walk. The honeymoon period where it seems that you really do walk on water. But like every marriage the honeymoon eventually ends and the real work of building the relationship begins.

Over the past Fourteen years we have had beautiful times of refreshing and God has blessed the work. For this we are grateful. There are only three families with us in the church who were here when we arrived. The others who greeted us the evening of our arrival have left the state. That seems to be a way of life in Alaska. We meet new people and pour into their lives, they stay for a while and then move on.

For the new families who have become a part of our church over the past few years we will miss you more than you know. You came to us during a crucial time and breathed new life into our fellowship as you helped us walk through a transition leading into more of a contemporary service. What a blessing you have been not only to the church but also to my family. Thank you.

The hardest thing I have ever had to do was not moving to Alaska and it was not staying in Alaska. The hardest thing I have had to do is leave Alaska. This too is a reflection of grace.