Grace

 June 5, 2022

Linda and I have often wondered at the blessings that have characterized our lives. We’ve had bumps in the road; times when we wondered how we were going to make it; when we moved to Chicago for seminary in 1975, our income dropped from a whopping $12,000/year to about $3500. When we came back to NY in 1977, we were debt-free. Those years were tight. When someone broke into the church I was pastoring and stole the boys’ Christmas gifts, we had no cushion with which to replace them. Someone gave us money to make sure their Christmas wasn’t toy-less.

In 2004, the church went through a major upheaval that left us drained. We took a 10% pay cut (“we” being ourselves and our church staff); it took 10 years for Park church to get back on her feet, but we were able to bless our successor with a healthy congregation.

And now we are dealing with Nate’s melanoma. But if you add it all up, three major challenges in more than fifty years is a pretty good average. We’ve had all the normal ups and downs of marital life, but we have been blessed beyond measure. How is it that we’ve watched others deal with financial ruin, family dysfunction, catastrophic health issues, and not been touched ourselves? At times, we’ve almost felt guilty, like the soldier who made it home when so many of his buddies died.

We don’t understand the mystery of God’s ways. Of course, I would rather be the one with the cancer than to have my son dealing with it, but for some reason beyond our understanding, God chose otherwise. And on this day, Linda and I look back with deep gratitude one year to our Abi and Jake’s wedding. Tomorrow, we celebrate our fifty-second, and bow before the mystery of the grace that has gone before us each step of the way.