In 1996 Darren started a job that required him to work weekends. His days off were in the middle of the week. This worked out fine for the family because Joshua had net yet started school. His schedule, on the other hand, made church life rather difficult. He was no longer able to go to Sunday morning service at our church because of the late hour in which it began. Wednesday night home fellowships were his solitary means of fellowship and corporate study of the Word. Even though home fellowship was awesome, it was not enough and he felt as if he was starving. Due to this, he searched out a church with an earlier service time on Sundays. What he found very much enriched both of our walks with the Lord.
He had heard of a new church that had been started nearby our home and he went diligently for several weeks. I continued going to our home church and paying our tithe there. When Darren came home with reports on the amazing teaching, I found myself becoming dissatisfied with the teaching at our own church of many years. After awhile all the messages seemed to sound the same. In addition to this, my relationship with Mary had slowly ebbed away. I had grown weary of the searching. I was past the questions and was ignorantly well on my way to dealing with the consequences of my wrong thinking. For reasons completely outside of this church, I needed something to heal my mind.
After weeks of prayer and talking it over, Darren and I decided to leave the church that Darren had called home for thirteen years and that I had called home for eight years. We made the move and after a few months of listening to our new pastor teach through the scriptures book by book, chapter by chapter and verse by verse I began to realize that there was a hunger in me that I had either ignored or had just become numb to. It felt good to have it slowly satiated. Wayne, the pastor, taught us how to divide the scriptures correctly. For the first time in my life, I began studying the Word properly so that I could discover for myself what it was saying. I allowed the scriptures to speak for themselves rather than trying to crowbar my own agenda into them. Now I was truly searching the scriptures. These studies left me breathless and full of tears in awe of God. I saw how my thoughts and opinions paled in comparison to the depth of God’s wisdom. I realized for the first time in my life how the Bible could speak for itself without personal bias tagging along. The confusion and anxiety that I was experiencing began to drift away ever so slightly. It was at this time that I finally began the slow process of rejecting the many lies I had been harboring.
Not only did the Lord bless us with this church, he also blessed us with another child, Alexis. It had been seven years of desiring another child and the Lord heard my cry and gave me what I had asked of Him. The pregnancy was smooth and uncomplicated. Alexis was born healthy on the same day that Garth Brooks was singing in town and the same day that three tornadoes had touched down in Billings; the fourth of July, 1998. It was quite a day. Contrary to the day or the state of the weather, Alexis was a quiet and happy baby.
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