I’m currently in the process of trying to complete my doctorate, which has been a very stressful season. I was accepted into the doctoral program in January 2020, little did I know that a worldwide pandemic would happen that would dramatically and permanently change the course of our lives and the life of our church. The past few years have been some of the most difficult of my life in terms of sustained work without breaks. But by God’s grace it has been a time of great growth. I have learned to trust Him more and to recognize my weakness and sinfulness more, and for that I am eternally grateful. God has used this time as a refining fire, showing me how I needed to grow as a man, a husband, a family-man, and a pastor. We are also all well, which is an indescribable blessing, and wonderful things are presently happening in the life of our church.
However, I was not able to devote as much time to my doctorate as I would’ve liked and now I find myself struggling greatly to catch up and hopefully graduate on time. At the beginning of this year, I’d actually resolved myself to graduating a semester late. But the Lord enabled me to make a lot of writing progress this past summer 2022, to the point that I had a fighting chance of graduating on time (and thus saving a nice chunk of change), so now I’ve been pushing myself as hard as I can to finish.
That being said, my posts may be fewer and farther between as I work to finish my doctoral project, and they may be simple observations, but I’ll do my best to maintain the regularity of the blog.
I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! We were blessed to enjoy our first Christmas with our son, which was truly a blessing. We were expecting some family to come and be with us, but they were delayed with the large winter-weather front that came across the country. We’re blessed to have them with us now as we continue to celebrate Christmas a little later than usual this year.
May God bless you all! Keep the faith and follow Jesus Christ, our crucified, buried, Resurrected Lord!
Chase Thompson 