Chapter 1
Pastor Mark Stevens pulled slowly into the parsonage parking lot. The black shadow of the church was outlined by the brightness of the almost full moon in the sky, and the parsonage was just a dark, lonesome shadow in front.
He tried to stop the sinking of his heart. Was he crazy?
No. He knew for sure that God wanted him to go to Mistletoe Meadows and be the pastor there, taking over for Pastor Johnson, who had been the pastor for more than forty years. That much he was absolutely certain of.
But leaving his little congregation that he'd started ten years prior, the one that felt like family to him, especially since he had no family of his own... He had been an only child, and his parents had been older.
Always, his church had felt like family, comfortable and warm, and especially this time of year, around the holidays, it felt like he truly had a place to belong.
And now, he felt like he'd uprooted everything. Add in the darkness of the night, the coldness, the shadows, and the fact that he was alone, made everything feel like... he'd made the wrong decision.
Was this how Abraham felt? He had left everything he knew to follow the Lord...but he had a wife with him.
Lord, you haven't given me a wife. At least Abraham had that much. Someone to stand beside him, someone to keep him company, to encourage him when he was down, and to remind him that his job was not to make himself happy, but to follow God wherever God led.
Of course, he would be the same for her. It would give him a purpose in addition to shepherding his congregation. And... maybe there would be children, and he would guide them, encourage them, raise them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
God, you trusted Abraham to raise his children. You said you knew that he would raise them for You. I would try to do that too, with everything I have.
He'd started the ministry thinking he wanted to get married and have a really big family. The kind of family that he didn't have growing up. Not that he didn't love his parents, not that he didn't understand why. They were older; maybe he was all they could have—he wasn't sure. But he had really felt the lack of siblings, and had planned to have at least ten kids of his own. Of course, finding a woman who shared that dream was a little bit more difficult. Most women wanted to have a career and a life and didn't want to be a pastor's wife, with all of the things that normally entailed.
Lord, I know you have the perfect woman for me. Or... am I supposed to be alone?
There was always that nagging thought that maybe God really didn't have the perfect woman for him. Maybe he really wasn't supposed to have a partner in this life.
As he pulled around the side of the building to park in front of the back door, where he'd carried all of his books in on the previous trip, he shuddered again, he felt more alone than he ever had in his life before. Even more alone than he had when his parents had died within a week of each other, because at least then he'd had his little pastorate and the thirty to fifty congregants thatwere faithful every time the doors were open. They had felt like family. Now, they'd hired a new pastor, and he had left.
But then, as he was sitting there in his car, reevaluating all of his life decisions, and wondering if he had misunderstood what God wanted for him, he saw a little flicker in the window. He tilted his head.
It was a candle. A candle whose warmth and brightness cut through the dark, encouraging him, letting him know that when he walked in the door, it wasn't going to be cold and barren, but there was a little light to guide him.
He smiled in the darkness, because it was such a great analogy for the Christian life. A lost soul, looking for something, someone, anything that would help light their way, show them what to do, give some warmth and comfort in this dark world, and that was what a Christian was supposed to be. A little light to shine for Jesus and give encouragement in the darkness of the world.
He thought often that the darker and more sinful the world got, the brighter a Christian's light would shine. And here it was in his own life—God had provided the light.
Thank you, Lord. I needed that.
God always gave him exactly what he needed. It was a promise God made. Not to fulfill his wants, but to fill his needs.
Feeling cheered, he pulled on the car latch and opened his door. After grabbing a few packages from the back, figuring the rest of it could wait until morning, he walked up the walk that he'd trudged multiple times that day and the day before, as he moved his meager belongings—and copious amounts of books, study guides, and Bibles—into the small parsonage.
It was a Cape Cod style home, with four bedrooms on the second floor, and an open floor plan on the first, except for the room he was going to use as an office.
It was probably supposed to be the master bedroom, since there was an attached bathroom, which was really nice, but the parsonage connected to the church through that room and he wanted to havethe office on the first floor so that if he needed to have members of the congregation, or anyone really, over, they didn't have to go upstairs. The upstairs would be a sanctuary for his family.
I am getting a family, right, Lord? I'll follow you wherever you go, but... please?
It was a cry of his heart. He didn't really even have words anymore. He'd been asking God since he was about thirteen, praying for his wife, whoever she was, wherever she was, and that the Lord would just guide and protect her.
And lead them together when the timing was right.
He had felt like the timing had been right ten years prior, when he had started his first church, but obviously God disagreed.
He wasn't really looking forward to going in and being by himself. He already felt lonely inside, but he'd talked to Mrs. Tucker, who had asked him to leave the door unlocked from his last trip, so she could drop off supper that the congregation had donated. Obviously, Mrs. Tucker had brought a candle and left it burning as well.
His old church was only forty-five minutes away, but it felt like forever, because they already had a new pastor, and while they loved him, and he knew they always would, they'd moved on.
