As 1992 dawned, I was certain I had descended to one of the darkest times of my life to that point. For a variety of reasons, I could no longer continue serving the church I had pastored for the previous 4 years, and December 31, 1991, was my last day of employment—and the income would cease in thirty days.
I had no prospects of another place of ministry on the horizon, and although I was looking, nothing with any promise came up. We had very little savings—ministerial salaries typically don’t allow for setting much aside. That was true in our case, anyway.
So here we were. I was 33 years old, had a mortgage, car payment, insurance, household expenses, a wife, and two elementary-school-aged children. And no income.
“Just get a job!” the pragmatist says.
I get it. And I tried to find something. But my sights were set on finding another church to serve, which could come available at any time (actually, from initial contact to beginning service could take, at a bare minimum, four months and up to a year!). So, imagine the potential employer looking at my application and discovering my long-term objectives. Would you hire me?
Knowing we would eventually move, we put our house on the market, and prayed it would sell, but not before we knew where we were going!
What on earth were we going to do?
Well, we did pray a great deal. And we did our very best with our children to carry on as if everything was going to be fine, trying desperately to avoid showing them any anxiety, fear, anger, etc.
As I said, seemed like this would be a very dark time.
But it wasn’t! In fact, thirty-two years later, we still look back at the first half of 1992 as an incredibly bright time in our lives.
How?
It began on New Year’s day. An older couple in the church—now my former church—stopped by with a gift of $100. Two days later, another gift of $100 arrived in the mail, and another couple took us out for dinner to a very nice restaurant. On January 6, our dentist didn’t charge us for a visit. On the 10th, a check for $550 arrived from an elderly couple 500 miles away—the funds were sent to cover the cost of the next class I was enrolled to take for my doctoral program.
And so it went for the next five months.
A church in the area committed to sending a check for $150 every week until I found a new ministry. From January 1 through June 6, a total of $3,280 came in unexpectedly from more than a dozen different people—a couple of those gifts came from missionaries!
Eventually, I did get a part-time job paying a little more than minimum wage at a new K-Mart that was opening in town. They needed temporary help to get the store set up—I was a perfect fit!
By the end of May, we got a buyer for our house—closing would be sometime in July.
Then I got an offer to consider the pastorate of a church in Shelburne, Vermont—almost 1,000 miles away. They invited us to come in mid-June and stay for two Sundays. In Baptist churches, the pastoral candidate is voted on by the congregation, requiring a significant majority in favor of extending the call. The vote was 94%, the call extended, and accepted.
We would begin ministry in Vermont in mid-July.
Interestingly, no other unexpected gifts arrived once the initial trip to Vermont was scheduled. The K-Mart job was to end in mid-June. We needed to vacate our house by closing at the end of July.
In the six months from January through June, we never missed a mortgage, car, or insurance payment. All utility bills were paid on time. Never missed a meal, or even had to change our dietary habits. Always had gas in the car.
All our needs were met completely.
One of the reasons all these details are so easily called to mind is due to a very meaningful monument—the “Visions from Space 1992 Calendar” that hung in our kitchen.
Within the first couple of weeks in the new year—the supposed dark time—a few gestures of provision or hope appeared, and we thought it’d be a good idea to keep a record of them. So every time an unexpected gift or encouraging card/letter arrived, every notice of a potential ministry opening, every house showing scheduled, we put it on the calendar.
And we still have that “monument” to this day. From time to time, I’ll pull it out and reflect on how the Lord God in His faithfulness took what promised to be a dark time—filled with uncertainty, fear, and anxiety—and turned it into a time of excitement, hope, joy, peace, and deepening faith.
The other morning in my daily Bible reading, I read the account of Joshua leading the Israelite people across the Jordan River into Canaan (Joshua 3-4), the land God had promised to give them when He brought them out of Egypt 40 years earlier. So much had happened over those four decades—events that could have left many wondering if they would ever enter Canaan!
And here they were, looking at the river, waiting for the miracle of God parting the water so once again they could walk through a riverbed without so much as getting their sandals muddy.
But before splitting the river, God gave Joshua some instructions. One man from each of the twelve tribes of Israel was to pick up a large stone from the riverbed and carry it to the Canaan side. Those stones were then to be piled in such a way that they would stand as a meaningful monument for generations to come.
“This may be a sign to you,” Joshua instructed, “when your children ask in time to come, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord…. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.”
– Joshua 4:5-7
Our modern culture has been so fixated on “living in the moment” and “looking to the future” that monument building isn’t practiced much anymore. But it should be. Especially for those of us who put our trust in Jesus, in the God who has promised to supply, meet our needs, never leave or forsake His own. When He proves Himself faithful beyond the normal, everyday experiences of life, we ought to build a monument.
It doesn’t have to be a pillar of stones. It can be just a calendar!
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