To my audience, there are not going to be sufficient words in this post. It will truly, up-front, be an insufficient post and unequal to the love this woman deserves from those in the kingdom.
The Background
I had just been kicked to the curb, arrested, feeling destruction all around me, and again, blindsided by enemy attacks.
The year was 2012…
The region of the country was…..ugh…..frozen New England…the border between Connecticut and Massachusetts. I had spent the previous 20 years of childhood growing up believing that the People’s Republic of Taxacusetts was a thing. That it was nothing more than a haven for people who wanted all sorts of taxation and zero representation. And that there was nothing redemptive there.
And for this Florida boy, for a season, under duress, that was in places true.
Then I happened into IHOP a very broken man looking for work to support my boys, from whom I had become very estranged, during probably the worst season of my adult life, and I say that now in light of the current season and the previous season that just completed.
And I met the man on the right, who served as a manager of that IHOP, and immediately we hit it off, and found we had common passions and common purpose.
You see, even though I am garbed like an electrician as a trade of sorts, I am really a pastor by heart. Pastor “is not what I do, it’s who I am”.
And just as “one warrior recognizes another”, so also one spiritual warrior recognizes another. That pastor, John Chase, had spent a season broken as well, in the marital sense, just as I was entering. He was, at the time we met, remarried, and had been treated to all kinds of nasty attitudes among those of his own tribe and calling, though he had loyal supporters.
And his gifting and hardwiring, to develop teams using radically imperfect and sometimes very broken people affects every area of his life. With those imperfect resources, he does things of which most people cannot dream, because most people do not have a mindset obsessed with the Kingdom and the King who is G-d of the Impossible.
And in the midst of his new season, G-d dropped a radically broken man, designed to teach and pastor and love deeply, into his lap. And so we began to connect, and he poured into me as I worked the night shift with a number of other broken people. And as I was in the process of being rejected by my then-home church, he invited me to come to the church he pastored.
And in short, he demonstrated rock-solid loyalty to those he shepherded.
And I got to meet this woman, Erin.
And I got to know her equal loyalty and tenacity.
You have met few woman her equal that with minimal resources, maximized and leveraged responsiblity and stewardship into loads of results.
And my then-betrothed also eventually came with me there. And Pam and Erin connected. And amazing things flowered there in that interaction.
And Erin, if you knew her story, you would balk and say, “how in the hell is this woman still standing?”
And then comes the answer: The King of Kings made her to stand.
A Segment of Their Story: Having Done All, Stand
And John, who was in his middle age with three adult children, made the sacrifice for his bride, who had never had kids of her own, to help her step into the office of mother:
Adoption of two boys, followed by later adoption of more, all with favor of the state where they reside.
And growth. And a Master’s Degree. And leadership. And their love is a testimony to what Father does at the core of His Kingdom.
For Father is not merely about salvation, though that is an incredibly important dynamic of who we are as followers of Messiah.
But Father is MOST COMPLETELY about reconciliation. He has not merely given us the ministry of salvation or sales of fire insurance. No, he has given us the ministry of reconciliation to show others the way home, to provide a place of safety and love to others. To be a safe place for others.
And this is precisely what John and Erin were all about: being a safe place, and “on some have compassion, making a difference”.
Gang, I researched for and served Pastor John in a number of places in his church. He was the first pastor to unjealously make room for me to serve his church with trust. And he was wise enough to recognize that I was already trained by the King and to maturely take advantage of that resource.
And Erin was always there at the church just being a welcoming presence no matter how beaten-up one felt or was. She was just ever-present without pretense.
And John and Erin chose to gamble on me and Pam. And we built a friendship that went beyond ministry. We got to bless their children, and we have spent time praying for their children’s children. They are such a tenacious couple, one of those rare couples sadly in a ministry culture that is so negatively OBSESSED with APPEARANCE OVER TRUTH.
Erin, you are one of the reasons I am in the ministry I am in. Having watched the way you have flowered both from up close and at a distance, and having watch you embrace the depths of the King’s Love and Faithfulness in the middle of great adversity, you are the kind of woman that raises the bar for how a pastoral spouse conducts themselves and leads others into the Kingdom, running toward their Bridegroom.
Thank you for the stedfast example you set, the way you model Father’s desire and heart to adopt and graft in wild olive branches.
And thank you, Pastor John, for empowering your wife the way you do, and for doing what too few husbands do for their wives, and following Paul’s injuction to husbands better than most I know:
Husbands love your wives, AS CHRIST LOVED THE CHURCH
From Ephesians 5:25
And for blessing my wife and I by marrying us, and by counseling me when it was time to remarry.
And for speaking and benedicting my late wife on the day of her passing by speaking this good word:
And to those with whom I am most entertwined in the ministry to the broken, this pair is one of the reasons that I am involved as I am.
So, Erin, thank you for your place and the purposes of G-d that came through your life, and flowed to us and to me.
In the words of Mike Aubrey, I would say this about our respective wives, “she was perfect for me”.
Never was this more true for Pastor John than it was about you.
As much as it as true for me about Pam.
And Mike about Barb.
A woman may not be perfect…..but they can be perfect for a particular man.
And it takes a specific kind of woman to put up with those of us who are renegade pastors.
Giggle.
So, on this the occasion of your birthday, ma’am, may your children rise and call you blessed, and may your husband have praise in the city gate as you consider pieces of property and buy them.
Be at peace, sister and mother in Israel….