A Life of Service and Sacrifice--Happy Anniversary Kelly!

Happy Anniversary to My Beautiful Wife Kelly…

She has been the wife of a serviceman and the wife of a minister/pastor; both of which are very demanding when it comes to time and tolerance. 

A little information about the life she’s lived.  We met in elementary school and started dating the first day of our tenth grade year.  We graduated on June 2, 1984 and were married on June 30, that same year.  Six months later I joined the Air force without ever discussing it with her (bad idea); three months after that I left for Boot Camp and Tech School.  After completing school I was assigned to Moody AFB, in Valdosta, Ga.  We were stationed there for four years.  After completing my enlistment I was hired as the Associate Pastor of the Forrest Street Church of God, and Kelly immediately became a minister’s wife.

The relationship of a minister and his wife is extremely important, so much so that they must do an internship with their husbands, if they expect to advance in ministry.  This was a rigorous program that lasted nine months; it would be difficult by itself, but Kelly was pregnant during the internship, and Adam was not quite two years old.  Kelly gave birth to Karlee about a month after graduation. 

While serving in Valdosta, we built a nice little home.  Only seven months after it was built the State Overseer, Rev. C.E. Landreth called me for a meeting.  He wanted to know if I would consider pastoral ministry.  So after serving as associate pastor for two years we were assigned to the Claxton Church of God as Pastor.  It was here that A.J. and Andrew were born.  We stayed for five years and saw tremendous growth.

In 1995 we left Claxton and moved to Kingsland to serve as Pastor of The Harbor Worship Center—formerly Kingsland Church of God.  This August we will celebrate sixteen years in Kingsland.  We have seen tremendous growth and change in the church.  There have been good times and bad times, but Kelly has been right there through it all. 

She has been a constant in a life of ministry laden with variables; she has been my best friend, and my confident.  She is the one that has ALWAYS been there.

Kelly made the decision early in our marriage to stay home with the children and raise them with our values.  She has had a couple of good jobs over the years, and she has returned to college a couple of times.  In both instances she decided to put her life on hold for the children.  She is the best mom that I know (yes, I am biased).  Now she is a G-Ma to the sweetest little girl, Regan. 

Kelly is a beautiful lady with a beautiful voice, and a caring heart.  I’m just amazed that God saw fit to give her to me as my wife and the mother of our children. 

I love you Kelly for the beautiful and genuine person that you are. 

Happy 27^th Anniversary!

I Can't Believe My Eyes

Harbor Friends, 

Last night we had an awesome time in our series "It's Time to Get Going".  We learned that Joshua was facing what seemed like insurmountable odds; armies were all around him and Israel.  He could see his dilemma before his own eyes; this was not going to be easy.  The Bible says in Joshua 11:4-5: They came out in full force, all their troops amassed together--a huge army, in number like sand on an ocean beach--to say nothing at all of the horses and chariots (MSG).  So I think its clear now, and we can appreciate the situation that Joshua has found himself in.  This was his Dilemma...However...

Joshua heard a Word from God; a Word of Comfort/Encouragement: God said: "Don't worry about them.  This time tomorrow I will hand them over to Israel, all dead.  You'll hamstring their horses and you'll set fire to their chariots (Joshua 11:6 MSG).  Now this is actually prophetic language, because they are living in today, and God is talking about tomorrow.  This is so often the case with you and I.  Here God has already said what He is going to do, and what Joshua and Israel is going to do.  Victory has been proclaimed in Word, but not yet in deed.  This is a clear example of God calling the things that are not, as though they are.  But God can do this; He is a God that declares the end from the beginning.

So Joshua has this Word from the Lord, and he now begins to take action.  If you read the rest of the chapter you'll find that everything happened as spoken to him by God.  He and Israel defeated everyone; they hamstrung the horses and burned the chariots.  Did you expect anything different?  I mean God is the one that said it. 


Let me show you what intrigues me about the battle.  Two things happened that involve the senses of mankind, and one usually overrides the other.  The Bible says that Joshua saw the armies amassed against him, huge armies gathered like sand on an ocean beach.  He saw the challenge.  He saw the dilemma.  He saw the troops dressed for battle, BUT, he had heard from God.  Now, even in a court of law, a jury would rather have an eyewitness over an ear-witness.  They would rather be told what someone saw with their own eyes, above what someone says they heard.  So in our way of thinking, eyes are more reliable than ears.  But the beauty of this is that Joshua was not derailed, nor deterred by what he saw amassed against him.  Contrarily, he took great comfort and courage in what he'd heard from the Lord.  Although it was a prophecy; it would come to pass tomorrow.  But today he had to go on believing and participating in faith, that God would do what He said He would do. 

How does this apply to your life?  Are you believing everything that you see amassed against you?  Or, do you believe and participate by faith, in what God has said about the situation?  Sometimes you just have to say: I CAN'T BELIEVE MY EYES!!!