Hi everyone--
Yes, it's been a few months... After the blur of Britti's wedding and finishing my book, we launched right into 4-H, sports, and back-to-school. And on top of all of that... we had major drama at our church. The entire saga has been gut-wrenching, but, truly, God is good-- all of the time, and He is sovereign. He has everything all under control (when we don't try to snatch the "steering wheel" of our life situations on our own).
As of right now, our family is no longer at our now former church. We honored our commitment to VBS in July, and I spent about four weeks praying while we visited other churches. After my meeting with church leadership in late August, I officially asked to be removed from the church roll. Again, what a heart-breaking decision... I miss our church family so much... The girls are doing well, though. Both of them really like Brookfield Church, and I like it a great deal too. The sermons are inspiring and valuable; Ellie-Kate loves the bouncy house in the kids' area, and Emmy enjoys the youth ministry. The people are wonderfully welcoming too! However, the entire ordeal has consumed so much emotional, spiritual, and physical energy, not to mention time.
Blessedly, I'm starting to move beyond rewinding the series of events over and over again in my mind, instead trusting God that He will lead us where we should worship and guide me about how to handle this tough situation... Twenty years in a church is a long time... 20 years of relationships... 20 years of commitment, investment, tradition... 20 years in which children have come into our family and grown in the church. Chelsea Meagan, Emmy, and Ellie-Kate had never known any other church family.
We're grateful for loving friends and for a welcoming new church family... a church family that prioritizes God, love, community, and relationships. With this situation new yet now stable, I can start to dedicate time to catching up on important tasks that I had to put on the back-burner while dealing with church drama amid other work and family commitments-- such as our family blog.
Over the next few weeks, I hope to catch up on our blog. Many, many amazing things have happened over the past few months. God has truly provided for us, blessed us, and enabled us to not only survive this particular storm but thrive in other aspects of our lives as well. In closing, please know that I continue to pray for our home church-- for the leadership, for healing, for revival. One day, we hope to be able to go back, if and when it becomes God's will for us to do so. In the meantime, we're grateful for Facebook as a means of keeping up with long-time friends and for living in a small town where we are guaranteed to run into people at Walmart (especially if I'm running in for one item after working out and sweating a lot!).
Thanks for caring about our family... I'll be back with more updates very soon :)
Fondly--
Christie
