Finding New Normals in Your Life
By Cathy Emert
In the movie Family Man, the character Jack Campbell, gets a glimpse of what it would be like to have made a different decision in his life than the one he made. He chose success and wealth over a love that he left behind at the airport. There are many times that I feel like there has been a crossroads in life that we have had to make a major decision that took us down a definite path in life. That path took us away from family and then back toward family.
In 2012 our church of 22 years, chose to eliminate the orchestra from the Sunday morning worship time. My husband was the worship associate and was the writer and arranger for the choir and orchestra. We had begun attending the church after the birth of our oldest son, twin sons, and daughter. My husband was asked to join the staff 5 years after we had joined the church. The decision our church made that early summer in 2012 sent us searching for the next step we were to take in ministry.
The decision of our pastor and church affected our family of eight. At this point in life three of our six children had gotten married and two of them had begun their families. We were at a crossroads.
Soon a former pastor from our church contacted Chris with an immediate need for a worship pastor at his smaller church of 500 people, in Lubbock, Texas. Leaving behind five of our children, one in college, four of them beginning careers and families, and our youngest, Cambrie, a soon to be junior in High School, made the move with us to Lubbock.
The first move out of state we made in our marriage was an adventure. We arrived and had a new smaller church family that we fell in love with right away. Somehow, when you practice worship music and perform worship music to our Lord together each week, you bond together in making your music. I began going to Bible Study Fellowship, there in Lubbock, Texas. They met in the first Baptist church. The structure was comfortable and familiar in a new world of everything new.
The next step of settling was joining a church group of women in Bible Study and prayer group at our new church. Meeting with these women weekly was the next step for me to bond with them and to make some new friends. We prayed together and shared our struggles with one another to begin praying through the struggles that each of us were going through. My struggle was leaving behind my son in college and my other young family members. My mom and sisters had been 1 hour from me for years and now they were 12-13 hours away.
Finding our new normal began to happen when we began to invite some young single choir members into our home on Wednesday nights after choir rehearsal.
We provided the tea and dessert and they simply brought their supper that they picked up somewhere on the way to our house. Those evenings began to be what we looked forward to each Wednesday night.
Within the year we had visits at Thanksgiving (Our son Luke and his wife Ashley) and Rand came home for Christmas that year as well. My mom and niece ventured out to west Texas for a visit as well the following spring.
By the end of our first year there, we learned that the pastor we knew and loved there, was taking a new position in Bossier City, Louisiana. Our time there was quickly drawing to a close. Our youth pastors Dad came and served as the interim pastor, and we began praying for the next position the Lord would have for us.
Many times new pastors bring with them their own worship teams and staff. We at that point were praying to be back in Arkansas closer to our families. A church called us to come and wanted my husband to transition them from the traditional hymn type worship to a more contemporary version of worship that would contain fewer hymns and more Chris Tomlin, worship driven type of worship music.
Our daughter graduated from High School and began college in the town back in Arkansas we had relocated to. After months of trying to transition the music in the traditional church we had moved to, we realized our work there had come to an end. Among some wonderful choir members, and great friends our ministry there drew to a close and we were once again left searching for our next calling from the Lord to serve in.
Our next move took us to the Tampa, Florida area. Our daughter Caitlin and her husband were serving at a church in Clearwater, Florida, so this was our chance to live close her and her husband and our 3 little granddaughters. Chris was an associate worship pastor again at this large church that had an orchestra. He played again for the choir and led the orchestra each week in rehearsals. We were loving the warm weather, the beaches, and the family that was close by.
Eighteen months into our service there, we learned that our original church ministry was in need of a worship pastor and had contacted our son-in-law to fill that position. We were left alone again in a place with no family and we were at a loss. I took an admin position that was vacant at the church and we were slow and steady and enjoying the people and the beaches of Florida. We stayed in that position two years exactly.
Our son Luke was called and asked if Chris, his Dad, would consider moving to a church to be the worship pastor for a smaller church in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.
Luke contacted us and Chris submitted his name as a possible candidate. Before we knew it were loading a truck to move to the Tulsa, Oklahoma area.
There again I found a Bible Study Fellowship Class that I could attend. These were the beginning days of covid so my second year there was attending by zoom call each week. We built a home there, fully intending to stay there and live in the area where our son Luke and his family lived. We also were close to Northwest Arkansas, so we could see my oldest son Joshua and his family and our youngest daughter Cambrie, who had moved there after college to begin her career. This seemed like the perfect location to be near most of our children again.
As covid began to lift, we received a notice from a church in Sugar Land, Texas, that they were in need of a worship associate. They had an orchestra and were excited to meet Chris with his gift set of writing and arranging again for the choir and orchestra. It was a perfect fit. We loved the warm weather again and also had a son Rand and his family living in the greater Houston, Texas area. One year after our arrival our son and his family moved to Washington, DC. Alone again!
We are good and we see the faithfulness of God in our lives everyday. I again joined Bible Study Fellowship here in Sugar Land, which as been a standard of love and comfort and a source for new friends each time I have moved. I am so thankful for a Bible Study that focuses on the Holy Bible and no other book for learning about God and His purposes in our lives. I have met people from many different religions throughout the years at Bible Study Fellowship. The format is the same all over the world. BSF is an international Bible Study. Where ever I have attended, I have been assigned a small discussion group that I am in to answer our weekly questions together with other women of all ages studying the Bible together. After our 35-40 minute discussion we go to a lecture over the same material that we have just studied. We sing one song and listen to a 20-30 minute lecture that helps us to further understand the passage of scripture. We leave there with notes to read and questions to begin working on for the following week.
I didn’t mean for this to be about BSF, but about how I have found community throughout our decade of moving and serving the Lord. Each place has found its purpose in our lives. In Lubbock, our youngest son Rand met his future wife, and found a career in IT, through a leader in our church who took him in and trained him in that area.
In Arkansas, we were able to be there for my mom as she transitioned to a nursing home facility and back home again during her struggles in her latter years of life before she passed away. In Florida, we bonded with our daughter Caitlin, her family, and our grandchildren and we were there during the birth of our 6th granddaughter. Florida also provided my youngest daughter Cambrie, in college, a get away for spring breaks and summer vacations.
In Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, we were able to be with our son Luke and his family, as well as build a beautiful home that we loved. We also were able to visit our son Joshua and his family in Northwest Arkansas and also have their children sleep over at Granna and Gpaws house. Now here in Sugar Land we have gotten to be part of our son Rand’s life and his beautiful family. We have been here for the birth of their third child, our beautiful granddaughter, and we have been able to be part of their lives this year before they moved away. Our son Nathan and his family live in Texas too and I was able to travel to Nigeria while they adopted their sixth child. Some of this would not have been possible without the close proximity that our moves provided.
All in all, like Jack Campbell you make choices that define you. You begin to get into patterns of life that serve you well toward getting reestablished with friends and sometimes family as well. Sometimes you think you want it all to go back to the way it was before. It has been for us quite an adventure full of laughter and tears, fullness and lonesomeness. We have leaned on our savior Jesus Christ throughout it all. I found a prayer partner in Florida and we have continued to pray together for the past five years since I left there. God is faithful and God is good. Community with others has been found throughout these years through the churches and bible studies and friends that we have met along the way.
It’s important to be open to others and intentional in finding a coffee friend from time to time. Finding someone who knows the community well, can bring you all the information you need for your new place. The adventure continues! May God richly Bless You and yours as you make your decisions and navigate life finding your community with others and family that are satisfying and meaningful.