On saying yes when He leads and what that means for us now

I have always wondered what the story would be surrounding our departure from our home church (and consequently, from this city altogether) and truly, I prayed that the day would never arrive. I dreamed and hoped I would be called to continue serving in a place, on a team and with a church family I so dearly love for decades to come. But the Author of my story has made evident a new chapter, and so it is with deep sadness and humble obedience that Josh, Mercy and I share the news that we are moving on to a new ministry adventure.

As the story goes Josh and I were heading out the door to celebrate six years of marriage when an email came through from a CMA church in our district. The Search Committee was interested in exploring with Josh the possibility of him being their next Lead Pastor. We didn’t see this coming. At all. We were happily home with Mercy; finally a family of three after years of waiting and trusting.  We were fully engaged on our teams, using our gifts in our respective positions to bring the kingdom of God to the city of Salem and to the ends of the earth. We were serving and worshiping and growing at a church we loved, under leadership we respected, with people and pastors we wanted to continue learning from and developing under. Our friendships had never been deeper or richer. Our marriage had never been stronger or sweeter.

Initially, Josh and I shrugged off this opportunity. We wanted to stay here. And yet if we were honest with each other and ourselves we knew we couldn’t ignore this conversation. Although in recent years we had explored several different ministry opportunities such as serving as missionaries in China and church planting, we had returned from Ethiopia with a sense that we were entering a season of change. It wasn’t any clearer than that to me, but it was a distinct shift in my spirit I couldn’t shake.  I’d thought arriving back home with our baby would usher in a season of contentment as we settled in to being parents surrounded by our loving and supportive community, but this settled sense never came.  All that to say, when this church contacted us, seemingly out of nowhere, we felt it wise to pay attention, to lean in one step at a time, to allow God to unveil his will for us, even if the change he had been preparing us for meant a move away from everything we knew and loved.

Throughout the next seven weeks God clearly opened one door at a time for us to walk through. He gave us just enough peace and clarity to take the next step. We could never see the whole way out, but we could always see just enough to keep moving, hearing just enough of His whisper to know he was with us.  Some days this was exhilarating. Most days this was exhausting. We grieved and dreamed at the same time. We kept asking Jesus to help us, to show us the way we should go, to be with us, to reveal himself to us. And he kept doing just that.

And now, skipping a million details and emotions between then and today, I find myself resigning, after five incredible years, from a church and a team where I had hoped I was only just getting started. God has been absolutely generous to me during my years on staff. He has done exponentially more in me than he has done through me. He has used this place, my team, my supervisors and mentors to heal me, redeem me, speak promise over me, grow and shape me, call out of me what I had previously only wished was within me. I am a most certainly closer to being the person Christ has made me to be because of my years on staff and decades worshiping at my home church. I wouldn’t trade these years for anything in the world.  

Josh and I have been unbelievably blessed to both be on staff, serving in separate roles specific to our gifting and passion areas.  With that said I feel it is important to note the following: My first allegiance is to Jesus, who has never let me down, never let me go, and never used my pain for anything other than his redeeming purposes. My second allegiance is to my husband, who I am deeply thankful for and proud of. I trust him and believe in him. For my sake, and maybe yours, it is important for me to clearly state that I voluntarily and willingly release my vocational ministry role in this season to support and align myself with my gifted husband as he follows God’s call on his life to be the Lead Pastor at our new church.

I believe in this season Jesus is asking me to let go of how I  have envisioned my life and ministry calling playing out to allow myself to be sensitive and poised to receive from him what is next for me. As painful as it is to resign from a role I love and step into a season of relative unknowns, I feel certain this is what God is calling me to right now.  When I made the decision to follow Jesus all those decades ago, I committed to surrender the plans and preferences I saw from my perspective for the greater, sweeter, better plans God was working together for his glory and my good. Sometimes we must simply trust that what he can see from His perspective is so much better than what we can see from where we sit. This is one of those times.

Jesus gave humans “The Super Power of Choice”, as Josh so aptly puts it for his students, which means that we always have the choice to say yes or no to his leading. Part of becoming more and more like him and aligned with his best for us is to choose more and more “Yes’s” when he leads. I trust that Jesus works all things together for our good, according to his plans and purposes. I trust that he is calling all three of us to Fox Island, that he will write a meaningful chapter for Mercy, Josh and me, even though Josh’s role is most clearly defined.

If you ask me how I feel about leaving the church I’ve been at since I was born, I couldn’t articulate it clearly. If you ask me how I feel about being a Lead Pastor’s wife, I couldn’t tell you. If you ask me how I feel about leaving vocational ministry indefinitely, I’d mumble something unintelligible. If you ask me how I feel about leaving our best friends, our family, our adoption community, the place and people who helped us bring Mercy home, I’d probably just stare off into space. But if you ask me if I believe this to be the right step for us to take, I would say, “Yes. Absolutely.” I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is what God is calling us to. I know he gives us the freedom of choice to say yes or no to his leading. So with deep sadness and humble obedience I say, “Yes. Absolutely.”