Finding My Way Home

By Nicholas Lyerly

We may not always know where God is leading us, and like the prodigal son, we can often be led astray. So how do we find our way back? When Nick Lyerly received his call to the ministry, he was already settled with a family and a promising career. But even though answering the call would bring insurmountable challenges, he could not deny his true purpose. However, the road to Nicks dream of becoming a Methodist minister would be paved with hardship.

In Finding My Way Home, author and pastor Nick Lyerly shares his story of overcoming in the face of struggle, hardship, and disappointment. During his early years, Nicks family was struck by tragedy, and he became a rebellious youth, acting out in ways that would constantly haunt him. In spite of this, Nick grew to be devout Christian who would hear the call from God. Nicks faith and marriage would be put to the test while he attended seminary for four years away from his wife and son, but he remained steadfast. Yet even as he fulfils this call and ministers his own church, an unforeseen event would threaten his career before it had even begun. Was this part of Gods plan?

Even though our lives may not always turn out the way we plan, God can provide us with peace and joy through all the soul-searching, frustration, and indecision. Join Nick on his remarkable journey of self-discovery and redemption as he finds his way back home to God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Oct 24, 2016
• ISBN: 9781489709929

Nicholas Lyerly

Nick Lyerly earned his master of divinity degree from Duke University in 2003, and he is director of the Evening College at Florence-Darlington Technical College and pastor of Mount Vernon United Methodist Church. He and his wife, Staci, reside in Florence, South Carolina, and their son, Jacob, is a student at the University of South Carolina.

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Copyright © 2016 Nicholas Lyerly.

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Scripture quotations noted CEB are taken from the Common English Bible, copyright 2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-0993-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-0994-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-0992-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016917786

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 10/24/2016

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 Growing Up In Rural Williamsburg County

Chapter 2 My Teenage Years

Chapter 3 Going Back To School

Chapter 4 Marriage And Family

Chapter 5 The Call To Ministry

Chapter 6 Seminary Years

Chapter 7 The Methodist Church

Chapter 8 The Road Home

Bibliography

This book is

dedicated to my father, Carley L. Lyerly, and my mother Axley Verniece Cox, who did their very best in providing a good home for me, and to my lovely wife Staci, who has traveled this road faithfully with me for many years and to our son Jacob, who has been the most wonderful part of my life and the best son a father could ever hope to have.

A special thank you to Ann Moore for editing my manuscript and to Lynda English for the cover art design.

INTRODUCTION

T his book is not an academic or theological endeavor nor was it ever meant to be, but simply a story about my life growing up in rural Williamsburg County and all that God has brought me through. As a young boy I always believed that God had his hand on my life. I grew up in church and believed the bible stories with all my heart to be true. My dad used to tell people that God gave us this boy to be with us in our old age.

The purpose of writing this book as I stated in the last chapter is simply to tell my story of what God has done in my life and where he has brought me from. My hope is that my story may encourage someone who may be struggling with the decision to follow the call to ministry. I hope that my book will be a blessing to you … to encourage and strengthen your heart.

CHAPTER 1

GROWING UP IN RURAL WILLIAMSBURG COUNTY

I was born on June 16, 1958, in the Johnson Memorial Hospital in Hemingway, South Carolina. My parents were Carley L. Lyerly and Axley Verniece Cox. They were married at a young age; my mother was sixteen years old, and my father was around twenty at the time. They had nine children of which I was the youngest. Actually, my mother had more than nine children, but she had several miscarriages and a baby named Vera Clare that was stillborn. My mom was forty-eight and my dad was fifty-two when I was born. My mother thought she was just going through the change of life when she went to see our family doctor, Dr. Bryant. Then he broke the news to her that she was expecting another baby. I can’t imagine being the age of my parents and having a newborn baby. My father would tell the story that when I was born he told one of the nurses he was ashamed at his age to be seen with a newborn infant and that he planned to take the back street home. The nurse said, If I could do what you did, I would drive right down the middle of Main Street!

Growing up, I remember Mom, Dad, and Jenny mostly. I had three older brothers, Jerry, Jim, and Sonny and four older sisters, Nina, Mary, Martha, and Juanita. They were all grown and out of the house when I came along. My sister Jenny was ten years older than I was, and she was the youngest in the family until I was born. We all grew up on a little forty-acre farm that my dad loved. He planted corn and tobacco, and we had chickens and some hogs at one time. I especially remember the chickens because it was my job when I was old enough to feed them. We had a fenced-in chicken yard and an old chicken coop. In the summertime I would mostly go barefoot, and it didn’t matter how careful I was, when I went into the chicken yard to feed them, I always managed to step in chicken manure. As a boy, I always loved the summertime (and still do) because I could play outside all day long until dusk. I always managed to find ways to entertain myself. Everything from catching crayfish from the ditch by the road, to riding my bicycle, or chasing the chickens around in the yard were all ways that I kept myself entertained in the summer.

We lived in a little three-bedroom white house about four miles outside of Hemingway. Our house had one bathroom, and I can still remember when we had the plumbing for the bathroom installed. I remember the old outhouse we had out back and taking a bath in a large tin tub. Our house was one of the old time shotgun style homes with a front porch and back porch. It was always cold in the winter and hot in the summer in that house. I can still see my dad sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch smoking his pipe. He always loved Prince Albert tobacco and would roll his own cigarettes until one day he decided it was just too much trouble and switched over to a pipe. I can honestly say that my dad never whipped me a single time as I was growing up. My mother was the disciplinarian in our family and she used switches from her peach trees or whatever bush she could get her hands on when it came time to get one. I can remember many times dancing around in a circle as she swatted me with a switch on my legs. We knew we were loved and although we didn’t have much, we had food to eat, clothes and shoes to wear, and a roof over our heads. Our mother firmly believed that cleanliness was next to godliness, so she kept her floors clean enough that you could eat off of them. Every week without fail she mopped those vinyl floors.

One of my favorite things to do in the summer was to go swimming. The nearest public swimming pool was Johnsonville swimming pool some ten miles from where we lived. I would do anything to go swimming there. Often I would pick butter beans or help Mom work in the garden for the reward of being able to go to the pool. I almost drowned a couple of times there before I finally learned to swim, but I did learn. The other thing I did in the summer to stay entertained was work in the tobacco field. As soon as I was old enough, around eight or nine years old, I began helping the neighbors gather their tobacco. By this time my dad had retired from farming and barbering, so we rented our farm to my Uncle Edgar. I would help him too in the tobacco field. The farmers would come by early in the morning in their pickup truck and blow the horn. I can remember running out of the house and jumping in the back of the truck with the others as we all went to the tobacco barn together. I didn’t mind working at all and for a kid to make $8.00 a day toting sticks was a lot of money for me. I could buy a lot of candy, ice cream, and movie tickets at Anderson Theatre for $8.00. For those who may not know what a stick toter did, a stick toter was the one who carried the tobacco sticks, which were strung with green tobacco leaves, into the barn to the person who was hanging the tobacco. The sticks of green tobacco could weigh as much as twenty-five pounds or more or be much lighter. It was according to how many tobacco leaves the stringer (person tying the tobacco on the