Reluctance

It's been almost three weeks since my husband announced to our church that we are leaving them. Perhaps that sounds like a negative way of talking about accepting a new call but it is the truth. I did not want to go to church the day of his announcement. I felt sick over it and I couldn't bear to be sitting there with eyes on me while he made it. But I knew I couldn't leave my husband without family support that day so I prayed, earnestly, that the Lord would help.

When I arrived at church it was easy at first. He wasn't supposed to be making his announcement for another week yet so no one knew he was making it. My heart pounded in my chest. Lord, are we insane?! It must be something like standing at the door of an airplane right before a sky diver jumps. We have to be mad. I gathered my boys and we walked though the narthex when suddenly I realized someone was in our pew! Bother. Any good Lutheran knows a pew is sacred space, now we would be sitting somewhere awkward on such a big day. My eyes darted trying to figure out where to sit when I realized there was something familiar about the heads in our pew. The couple stood up and turned around and I gasped, it was my husband's aunt and uncle! Words can't convey how my heart swelled. I absolutely adore these two people, from the moment I joined the family they have shown me such warmth and unconditional love. I asked them how they knew and what they were doing here (they live over an hour away and a visit was not planned) and her eyes teared up and she said, "We didn't, he just told us what is happening today, we were in town yesterday for business and stayed the night and decided to come to church here this morning." I hugged her.

We took our seats and before I could think my husband was coming out and stepping down amidst the congregation. I swore I wouldn't cry but my eyes began to sting hot. His voice took on a shaky edge as he made a few other announcements and I saw some eyes look curiously at me wondering why he seemed that way. Then he took a deep breath and said he had another big announcement to make. Every eye locked on him and I saw people stiffen. I don't remember the words he said, it all just blurred at that point, but as my aunt put her arm around me and began silently crying, it was all I could do to not fall apart as the tears streamed down my face. To say there was an audible gasp when he announced he had actually accepted a call across the world would be an understatement. How could a pastor with 5 young children leave a booming, proud LCMS church that boasts a 4K-8 school with a waiting list a mile long? How could he go to perils unknown and sell everything he owns? How could he leave family and friends and the ability to communicate and go to a place where he will not only start over with relationships but even in the ability to speak? Members began streaming out of the church into the restrooms and hallways to cry and console each other. I wished then that the announcements were after church instead of before. But as he closed his announcement he said that now we would draw near to the Lord for comfort as He gives us Himself in His Word and Sacraments and draws us, as always, to the entire church around the world and the church triumphant.

It's been three weeks since that day. But it feels like an eternity. I once read a book titled "The Reluctant Companion" about a pastor's wife who ended up a missionary's wife when her husband's first call out of seminary was overseas to Africa. To say I'm reluctant at this point sounds like a paradox. Didn't we agree to this? Didn't we pray about it for months? Yes. But it's quite a different thing to dream about adventures afar and then to wake up and realize it's no longer a dream. We are committed. There is no turning back. For months we romanticized and talked to our families feeling quite proud of what WE were willing to do to serve the church and then we woke up on the other side of his announcement and realized how very weak we are. It is the Lord who will do this, not us. This is our comfort. And so every day we wake up to our new reality and try to find the strength to begin the months of preparation for deployment.

Last night as we prepared for bed, my husband read a sermon aloud from Reverend David Petersen's Advent and Christmas sermons. Anyone who is familiar with Pr. Petersen's sermons knows the powerful preacher he is. The law in his sermons strikes hard and swift like a hard slap on the face, but his Gospel rains over like a torrential warm spring downpour. Last night I was shocked to hear Gospel from beginning to end. I know there was law because Pr. Petersen does not preach sermons without law (for it is the law that shows us our need for a Savior), but the Gospel was so strong and so comforting, and perhaps I needed it so badly, that I soaked in its glory from beginning to end. He spoke on love, on God's plan of salvation from the garden through the incarnation, and God's intimate way He draws us, not as a God that forces Himself on us and forces adoration, but as a God that so desires us to delight in Him that He draws us tenderly, affectionately, as a groom draws his new bride tenderly to himself.

My husband and I spoke in hushed voices. God has most assuredly drawn us to this, and where He draws, He loves: tenderly, completely. Christ is bigger than all of this and His love for our current church far exceeds our love for them. He will show us how deeply He loves when He continues to provide for them during this very unexpected departure and when He continues to provide for us during this curveball we never, ever, expected. My husband and I laughed last night about how we don't even like to try new restaurants. Or really go to new places. We prefer to vacation by visiting our families. But God's calls rarely make human sense. What matters is that God has called, and where He calls, He equips. May He equip us to this service with love and humility.