BIG DECISIONS

At the age of sixteen, I was wrestling with my future career choice. Would I be an engineer, or a teacher, or somehow learn how to deal with a persistent nagging in my spirit to be a minister?
Following summer school and completing the provincial Department of Education requirements, I began teaching the seventh grade at Clarenville Elementary School. While the experience was most satisfying, I decided not to continue in that profession. In the darkness of the night, when sleep just would not come “The Hound Of Heaven” would be in hot pursuit as I lay there.
Exposure to an entirely different academic discipline may “slow the hurrying pace of those feet that followed after!” For example, at Mount Allison University, I explored the possibility of an engineering degree! But even in the whisper of the wind, I felt the breath of God, and to feel the wind blowing my hair felt to me like the touch of His Hand!
Reluctantly, I postponed my dream of becoming an engineer for the immediate future and took the necessary steps to substantiate my claim that I was not meant to become a Minister.
At eighteen, I offered myself as a lay pastoral minister in the United Church Of Canada. I accepted an appointment to serve three far-flung congregations on the Pilley’s Island Pastoral Charge under the supervision of the Rev. Dr. A.J. Barrett of the Grand Falls United Church. I was all alone and scared, yet all the time, a haunting thought persisted that I was not alone! And I never felt more contented than I did now serving that incredible Pastoral Charge. Although I stayed with the congregations for a couple of extra years, I kept assuring myself that in the end,” this too will pass,” and engineering might yet be “the most satisfying of the three’ the presenting options.’

And then, one close, muggy evening in mid-spring, I had a more profound encounter with “The Chief. “I was scheduled to be the guest preacher at an ecumenical service on Good Friday Evening. A large congregation was present that night, contributing more to the church’s stifling atmosphere. With a pounding heart, and copious notes, carefully stacked in perfect order, I stepped into the pulpit to deliver the sermon. I had barely started on the delivery when a choir member somewhere behind me, deciding that a measure of cool, refreshing air might now be in order, proceeded to throw wide a window. In came the breeze, and away went my copious supply of sermon notes, and on came the makings for a severe panic attack. It was severe, particularly for a boy of eighteen years. Nevertheless, that very moment might have been the conclusive evidence I had been awaiting. Engineering loomed large at that moment as my future destiny!
As I stood there in the choking silence, my heart took the swiftest elevator to the soles of my feet. Then the most unforgettable experience of a lifetime was mine! I tell you, I was aware of another Presence in that pulpit with me that night! And in the quiet, I heard,
“My Son, don’t be afraid, we will do this together. Do you think that everything depends on you and your notes.”
“No, Lord, not on me,at all. Let this night be for Your Glory! I surrender all!
Some three years later, utterly unforeseen by me, I, once more, was to Pilley’s Island Pastoral charge. There now, I met the most fantastic person who became the love of my life. During my earlier years as the minister of her home Church’,  she was Nursing in Saskatchewan; therefore, we had never met. Now when I unexpectedly returned, she was there. We married a couple of years after and now have three beautiful daughters. I graduated from the Memorial University Of Newfoundland with a BA. Degree and from the Atlantic School of Theology, three years later, with the M.Div Degree. A Post Graduate degree in Divinity.
For over thirty years now, I have been honoured to serve as an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada, supported by the most wonderful family one could ever ask. This Ministry has always been a family adventure from the beginning.

To this latest hour, I cannot stand in the pulpit or perform the responsibilities entrusted to me without the knowledge that I never stand alone. “The Chief”, who so demonstratively rescued me that night so many years ago, still assures me: “Don’t be afraid, we will do this together.”
That journey is almost over now, but if I could, I would do it again without hesitation.

“The Hound Of Heaven” reference, I owe to the poet Francis Thompson and his poem of that same title.