2008 was filled with unexpected turns and trails, but although some were good and some were bad God is still good and 2009 is filled with expectation. To fill in the back story let me explain a little of what has happened in the McCoy’s life. 2008 started with a great expectation. We were serving with a great Pastor who loves the Lord and loves people and we were working together with him and his family as the youth Pastor of the Church. The future seemed very bright, but then something unexpected happened. An earthquake…no really an earthquake, in Illinois. I remember being woke up to the shaking of the bed, the sound of our furniture rattling, and my wife’s panic wondering what that rumbling sound was. Then it dawned on me that this experience was familiar, I had frequented Los Angles many times as a child and have experienced these conditions before. However, this earthquake was not only literal it was in a sense a setting of the platform of how things would play out for the rest of the year.
In May, our Pastor let the deacons of the Church and me know that he was looking at being a Pastor of another Church. He felt very lead of the Lord to go down this path and looking at where he is at now, we praise God that He is using Pastor Andy at Southwinds and allowing him to see the many blessings He had for yielding to His perfect will. On the other hand, the shock to the system was pretty great and we found ourselves in a predicament. What now? Where now? In the transition, the Deacons of the Church asked me to step in as the interim Pastor of our Church and we felt as if the Lord might be leading us to Pastor again. We know that the Lord wants us to Pastor, but haven’t seen where as of yet. Was Colonial the place? Was this to be? Maybe God brought us to Colonial for this reason? I mean everything seemed to fit…right? I have been working in the ministry for several years now, I am familiar with the Church and the people, I have a vision from the Lord for this place and the people, and God was even blessing the work as I was their interim Pastor (We saw souls saved, baptisms, new families still coming, and a great spirit in the Church) but that is not always the way the Lord works.
We then had to do one of the hardest things for someone in the ministry has to do…walk away. Not because we wanted to, but because we knew the Lord wanted us to walk away from Colonial. We knew there were several families that wanted us to be their Pastor but the Lord did not want that to come to pass. In order for the Church to move on for the Lord, we had to step away so any new candidates could be considered without families still thinking we could be their Pastor. And thus I bring you the place that our family finds ourselves at the conclusion of this past year.
I won’t lie and say that it has been easy. Going from Church to Church, watching lives separate from ours, watching my children not have friends, fellowship or really anyone but each other and their family, watching my wife and I go through times where we want to through our hands up in frustration, watching the whole “Politics” of Church ministry, and then the emotions…oh the emotions. Discouragement, loneliness, frustration, and an overall feeling of despair. And yet through all of this we realize that God has willed it and even though all these things have come and we try to deal with them as a family we know that God is good and as we love Him through this He will work it all for good.
So six days in and what’s going on…not much but yet much hope! Hope is something that we find ourselves clinging to. Charles Swindoll wrote this, “Hope isn’t optional. It’s essential to our survival. Hope is as important to us as water is to a fish, as vital as electricity is to a light bulb, as essential as air is to a jumbo jet. Hope is basic to life.” We are clinging to the hope that is only found in the Lord. The hope that we will one day find a people that we can Pastor, the hope that one day we will see more lives changed, the hope that one day we will again have fellowship, the hope that one day our children will again have friends, the hope that we can only find in Jesus Christ.
