Thoughts of a Sojourner

I wanted to spend time in this post sharing about mine and Kim’s faith journey as a couple. I will get back next week to sharing about our journey of joy in welcoming Olivia or as Kim and I referred to her (even to this day) “The Baby Girl” and our journey raising two wonderful daughters. I would be remiss though if I didn’t share about our journey of faith. Kim and I both were raised in church and both come from generations of faithful believers and servants in and of Jesus Christ. Many may think that because I am a pastor that our marriage was one that had always been defined by our faith, but in the first 3 years of our marriage we did not make serving and worshiping our Lord a priority. Like many young couples, we busied ourselves with many things that while for the most part were enjoyable, but we were not where we should have been where our dedication to worshipping and serving the Lord was concerned. We were what I would call “Easter Bunny” and “Santa Claus” church members. In other words, you would see us at church on Easter, Christmas and usually Mother’s Day. We really had no reason for not consistently attending church, worshipping and serving the Lord other than we just became very lazy where our faith was concerned. Simply put, for the first three years of our marriage it was tragically not important. In 1992 our first daughter Lillian was born and we still didn’t think it a priority to make sure our daughter was raised in church with same opportunity to know the Lord as Kim and I had been given the opportunity to do. Thankfully that all changed in the spring of 1993. I am thankful for a godly mama! My mom, Connie, called me one Saturday evening that Spring and asked to carry Lillian to church with her the next morning. Shamefully, I was wrongly “offended” and told my precious mama, no. She responded with, “Your daughter should have the same opportunity to know the Lord as you and Kim had when you were young” and I remember I had no response and the conversation ended. Over the next day or two, Kim and I begin to talk about that fateful phone call and fell under great conviction that my mama was right! To say I am thankful for a mama that loved me enough to tell me the truth and confront me about my lack of faithfulness to the Lord is an understatement. For the first time, as a young father and husband, I realized that it was my responsibility to lead my family spiritually and that needed to begin with attending worship. We would begin this renewed journey of faith in April of 1993 the very next Sunday after that phone call by attending worship at Sardis Springs Baptist Church. Kim had attended First Baptist Athens and I attended Fairview Baptist until we were married. We decided to start fresh in a new church and Sardis Springs is where we started. I will never forget that first Sunday. I was overwhelmed first by grief that I had failed my family up to that point in leading them spiritually. Secondly, I felt a great sense of the Lord’s grace and forgiveness as I committed myself that day to do my best to be a godly husband and father. The Monday night after that Sunday, Billie and Angie Blackburn visited us to just invite us to their Sunday School class and give us a Sunday School book. We begin attending Sunday School the following Sunday and Billie & Angie became great examples and mentors for Kim and me. I will always be thankful for their impact on us as a couple and for Billie’s impact on me falling in love with teaching God’s word. Billie gave me my first opportunity to teach in his absence one Sunday and I knew very quickly that I wanted to grow in my study of God’s word and spend my life teaching His word, although being a pastor was not on my radar. Kim found her niche and calling in children’s ministry by working in the children’s department and ultimately becoming the Vacation Bible School director not only at Sardis Springs, but would continue that role for many years at Belmor where I have pastored the last 25 1/2 years until her illness caused her to have to give it up. We would also serve as volunteer youth ministers at Sardis Springs for several years. Those years in youth ministry were some of the most rewarding of our early faith journey. We grew to love so many of those teenagers in our ministry as our own and still love them to this day. I was given the opportunity to serve as a deacon at Sardis Springs from 1997 to 2000 at which time the Lord called me to the pastorate. I began wrestling with the Lord in the spring of 1999 with God’s call on my life to serve as a pastor. For several months only Kim and I knew of this struggle and she was such a support and prayer warrior for me during those months. In late October of 1999, I told Kim that I was ready to surrender my life to the call God had placed on me. I will forever be thankful for her prayers and encouragement. I am also thankful for the prayers and encouragement of my Mama & Daddy and my Papa (Schrimsher) during the last couple months before publicly surrendering to the call to the gospel ministry. They were the only other people other than Kim that I had discussed it with before surrendering publicly. My first opportunity to preach would come in November of 1999 when Mike Henderson called and asked me to preach at Belmor Baptist Church one Sunday because they were without a pastor. Over the next three and half months I would preach pretty regularly at Belmor and in March of 2000 I formally submitted my resume’ to be the pastor of Belmor Baptist Church. I would ultimately serve my first Sunday as the pastor of Belmor Baptist Church on March 26, 2000. I have continued to serve my precious church over these last 25 years and 8 months. I don’t think I could serve a better church than Belmor. Kim and I quickly fell in love with our new church and they have treated my family with overwhelming love and grace these 25 plus years. For 24 years and 11 months, Kim faithfully served by my side as the best pastor’s wife a pastor could ever hope to have at his side. She was my confidant, my counselor, my accountability partner and partner in faith those many years. To say that I have missed her companionship in this area would be a gross understatement. I find myself many times wishing I had access to her counsel and wisdom, but I am thankful to be able to glean from her many previous years of faithful counsel and wisdom. During her illness and ultimate home going, my church has loved on me and been such a great source of refuge and comfort in a way that I could never hope repay. Looking back over our 34 1/2 years of marriage, I am thankful that most of it was spent serving the Lord together. We would often look back with thankfulness to that phone call from my precious Mama many years ago as a catalyst to our renewed and continuing faith journey. Of all the things in mine and Kim’s marriage, I am most thankful for the opportunity to serve the Lord with my bride by my side. After observing her many years of faithful service to the Lord and His church, I am confident that my bride was greeted by our Lord with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant”. She finished well and that should be the goal of every believer. Gosh!, I miss her partnership in ministry, but I do not begrudge her faith becoming sight on that early morning of February 21, 2025 and I am confident because of the saving grace of the Lord we serve, that one day I will see her beautiful smile again in all of it’s glorious perfection.