Dear Church of the
Redeemer –
It’s not easy to
move away from a church family that you have known and grown with for 16 years.
One of my earliest
fond memories of Redeemer was after we had been coming for a few months. As we were milling around the foyer at Sun
Valley, one of the teenagers at the time, Kevin Garrett (son of David and
Joan), came up to give Strider, who was 3 at the time, a high-five, and kissed
little 1-year-old Rayna on the head. I
remember thinking a church where the teenagers care for the babies is a place
where I want to be.
Not long after,
that little baby girl of ours started displaying some alarming health problems
and I was so scared and felt very fragile.
As soon as the church leadership became aware of the situation, they
quickly gathered around us to pray. As I
looked around at all of the elders (I think there were 4 at the time) and the
pastor praying for our daughter with such compassion and tenderness and anointing
her with oil, I knew this was a place where I wanted to be.
When the pastor and
his wife invited our family over for lunch after church a few months later and
I looked at Elizabeth and felt like I could just cry on the spot and she would
be a safe person to bear my burdens, I knew we were among family.
It took us awhile,
though, to really dive in…. Having young kids made us want to sit in the back,
and being overwhelmed with life made us hesitant to join much. But after about a year, the leader of the
women’s ministry approached me seemingly out of the blue and asked me to host
and lead a women’s Bible study. That was
when I came alive and felt like we belonged.
I could recount
time after time when the family at Redeemer stepped in to help us in ways we
needed and cherished…. Ministering to us after a miscarriage, caring for us
when a child was in the hospital (both of those were actually in the same
week), coming alongside us when we needed help parenting or advice in decisions
we had to make.
It will be hard to
leave this family. And, it will be
especially hard to leave the family-in-the-family… Getting to worship with my
brother, his wife and kids has been one of the biggest blessings (I never
appreciated going to church with my siblings when I was little, but now I
do!) Sitting in his Sunday School
classes and learning wisdom from my younger-but-elder brother has been
mind-blowing.
Thank you, COR, for
serving us, helping us, teaching us, putting up with us and pulling us in. As I’ve remarked many times, long-time church
membership seems to be a fading phenomenon, but for those of us who have lived
it, it is one of the most beautiful and precious gifts on earth.
You will always
have a spot at the COR of our hearts. 😊
Love,
The Frank Family
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