Are We Family Now?
Griffin Gulledge in The Morgan County Citizen
Recently I was given a great opportunity to start contributing to the Morgan County Citizen as a regular writer. The editor charged me with introducing myself in the first article. I took the afternoon to share about our early days at Madison Baptist Church, and how God used them to care for us in the difficult season of life-threatening sickness for my wife leading to a long NICU stay for Rosemary due to her premature arrival. Here’s an excerpt from the article, entitled “Are We Family Now?”:
How can you ever belong in a town and in a church where everyone is either related by blood, blood pact, or organ donation? Well, one way to belong is to suffer together. I couldn’t go back and attend Morgan County High School with them. I couldn’t enroll at UGA and learn to call the Dawgs. After all, my family and I are dyed in the wool Auburn fans (and alums), so I am fairly certain such an action would have me disowned.
Instead, we did the thing we never would have chosen: we got beat up by life. When you become the pastor of a church, you buy a pack of handkerchiefs. Whether you or them, happy or sad, unexpected or long-time-coming, the one thing you can expect in pastoral ministry is tears. We just didn’t expect them to be ours.