Over 28 years ago a married couple walked into the church and knew they were home. I was 6 months pregnant with our first child. Billy and I both felt strongly about raising our family in a church. Billy’s parents had both passed away and my parents didn’t live in town. We needed to begin building our village of people that would guide and nurture us along our parenting journey.
Proverbs 22:6 “ Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”
This was our hope for both of our children. No matter where they went in life, they would always have a church to come home too. No matter what bad things might happen in life, they would always have a church that would wrap their arms around them. No matter who they became in life, they would always have a church family that would love them.
From birth to adulthood my children have been apart of the life of this church. Their church family has seen them baptized, confirmed, given 3 rd grade Bibles, blessed as they left for college and loved at every corner. When things go bad for one of them, someone from the church always reaches out to them.
Keaton wasn’t sure he wanted to leave the old sanctuary. That was a safe space for him. A member of our church heard him say that he didn’t want to leave the sanctuary. They saw him crying when we had the last service in the old sanctuary. This older member took his hand (he was 7 ) and walked him down to where the new sanctuary was going to be built. He knelt down and told Keaton something I will always remember. “ The key to life is remembering where we’ve been and holding on to where we’re going.” He told Keaton to hold on to all of his great memories of the old sanctuary and to remember that God is good and will lead us in the right direction. He said that this new sanctuary was the right direction and that God would help us build new memories in that space.
And God has done just that! What memories we have built together this last 15 years. Nativity pageants, egg hunts, Palm Sundays, Thanksgiving lunches, Christmas Eve services, many Associate Pastors, funerals of ones we love, Senior Sundays and on and on.
Thank you, Arborlawn family for being apart of our village for the past 28 years. We are so happy that we wandered into this church so many years ago. We have loved so many wonderful people and cannot imagine our lives without every single one of you.
We just have to remember that God is good and He is for us. The best is yet to come!
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for this church and the wonderful members past and present. May our love for one another prove that we are YOUR disciples. Send your peace and prosperity into this place where you have planted us.
In Your Name We Pray
Amen
Written By: Kim Cordell