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THE JOURNEY / 2015 WINTER
Life is What Happens When You’re Making Other Plans Bishop Tim Smith Bishop Tim Smith - Overseer to the NC Lutheran Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Over 15 years ago, when I was in full time pastoral ministry, I had the pleasure of becoming friends with the pastor of Grace Lutheran Church. His name was Pastor Tim Smith, and he was widely known and loved by the many of us who were blessed by his ministry. Tim and I enjoyed fellowship and prayer together and were a part of a unity and prayer movement in the High Country that witnessed churches of all denominations coming together to worship and pray for God’s grace & Mercy to be poured out in our region of these NC mountains. Well, for those of you who don’t already know, a lot has happened in Tim’s life since he and his family left Boone in 2010. Pastor Tim is now Bishop Tim, overseeing and helping churches in the NC Lutheran Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. In the story below, he tells how this came to be and offers us encouragement for being open to the unexpected in our own spiritual journeys. However, I’ve also chosen to go down memory lane to post a story that we carried in our 2008 edition of The Journey, when Pastor Tim was still here. The message he shared with us then was, and still is, a powerful reminder of our need to make wise choices with how we spend our time and how we determine our priorities. By reading these 2 stories together we get a “Where are they now?” story with lessons for our own lives. May you be as blessed, challenged and encouraged as I was. - Ben Cox
M
y wife Wendy and I, along with our children Matthew (2nd grade), Isaac (kindergarten), and Ruth (age 2) moved from Catawba County to Boone in 1993 when I received a call to serve Grace Lutheran Church. Boone and Grace were truly home for us. All three children graduated from Watauga High, and Wendy taught for 17 years at Blowing Rock School. In January of 2010 I accepted a call to serve Redeemer Lutheran Church in Atlanta and moved
there—by myself. The plan was for Wendy to join me that summer, finishing out her year of teaching in Boone and selling our house. With the tanked economy though, the contract we had to sell our house fell through, Wendy couldn’t find a job in Atlanta, and we were told that Ruth’s in-state tuition would be in jeopardy if Wendy moved. What we had hoped to be a fivemonth separation actually lasted two whole years! At least Wendy
got her 20 years in with the state retirement system and retired with full health benefits. I was 50 when I went to Atlanta. Wendy teases me that it was my mid-life crisis. I tease her that it could have been much worse! All teasing aside, I had almost gone to Redeemer in 2006, but decided not to since we had two children still in high school. At the time, Wendy told the Call Committee, “The timing just isn’t good for our family. If this were three
