church

When life is full the blog goes empty!

I've missed this place & you somehow even though we don't exactly talk here. But You were missed & that's always a nice thing to be told.

Church has been happening.

Bryce & I have become members of our church & in the journey from the class to the confirmation some pretty interesting & beautiful new thoughts have floated into my head. In a conversation I had with my dear cousin a week or so ago I told her how in being back at the church I feel like I am "getting my voice back" - the odd part is, I don't know where it went to begin with. I've struggled with regularly attending church since we were married & while we have been told that that is ever so normal I don't think the loss of self I have felt was usual. I have been wrapped up & trapped within myself unable to see what I was missing & even convinced I was happier that way. But I haven't been "happy" with who I have been for some time, until these last few weeks.

Recently, I heard a man on the radio listing off the tremendous distances that exist between the earth & other parts of our solar system. His conclusion upon listing these measurements in the billions & trillions was, "that just goes to show how insignificant we are," and this, I think, is the common reaction. It is what we hear & tell ourselves whenever we are faced with calculations measuring the grandeur of the world or our solar system. However, this time when I heard his response a deep cry welled up from within me & my heart screamed at him, "NO! Don't you see, all those huge numbers & unimaginable distances only point to HOW significant WE are!" Doesn't it count for something that we are the only creative, transformative, exploring & reasoning creature to exist in the universe? I have grown up with voices all my life teaching me that I am nothing but "dust," that I am undeserving, that I'm so small I almost don't matter. I'm wondering now if those were the voices that had taken away my own, deprived me of any feeling of action. I think they probably were. But I can't hear them anymore and I do disagree. God's love is why. I am loved, I am called to action & when I am loved so deeply I feel I can do nothing but act on it! It is the greatest feeling & one that is coursing through me, I can't wait to get into fellowship with my dear friends & soon-to-be-friends and the fact that I, Molly, just typed all those words  (one after the other) is proof of a miraculous change within myself over this past month.

I said life has been full & I don't mean with work or routine. It has just been exciting, dynamic & almost like learning how to live again. I feel like I have come home after a cold & too-long journey, the blanket is around my shoulders & the cup of hot soup in my hand. He (my Lord) is feeding me, preparing me for something that just feels like it's going to knock  my little cinderella  flats right off & my heart is leaping to see it.

molly

thank goodness for "however"s

I woke up this morning and did NOT want to go to church. While I was lying in bed contemplating my options I received a text message from a dear friend inviting Bryce and I to lunch after church. I also did NOT want to go to lunch. My lack of desire to do anything was most likely the result of a full & busy retail work week combined with the after-effects of a fabulous work party I attended the night before. I love people but they exhaust me and I had quite simply filled my need to socialize and was left wallowing in my introvertedness. Thus, I politely declined the invite saying I wasn't feeling well and continued laying in bed trying justify my desires to remain there.

However, - and thank goodness for "however"s! - my dear husband was up early, ready to go to church and sweetly asking me to go with him. So I got up, put my darling new boots on and husband in hand we headed out into the rain. To make a "short story long" as my boss likes to say, a friend of Bryce's met us at church to check it out and see if it would be a good fit for her. Appropriately, her name is Precious. The service was great (made better by some chocolate chip cookies I snuck in - I love being an "adult") and it was wonderful to see some dearly missed faces and all the regular but beloved ones as well. During the service I received a texted response to my earlier declination saying that some spicy curry and pomegranate martinis were just the thing to make me feel better and we should still do lunch - she was right and I happily gave in.

Thai food is not something I go out of my way to eat but Precious was excited and she gave me the courage to go and taste. Our dear friends, a married couple we had done junior high ministry with some years back were our benevolent hosts . Making sure that we had enough food and pomegranate martinis, we were entertained with countless stories ranging from hilarious to heartbreaking - that kind of thing happens when one of your hosts is a hospice worker and a crazy New Zealander (I think the "zeal" part really carried over). We ended up staying at the restaurant until 3 o'clock thoroughly enjoying the company. It was truly a God-given and God-orchestrated series of events that, pathetically, I was completely willing to go without when I woke up this morning.

Today was just another instance where I came so close to missing out on huge blessings. It reminds me that life is a string of constant opportunity and that I am too often afraid to reach my hand into the bag of blessings and experiences that God holds open to me. In going to church and lunch I learned about people, I built relationships, I enjoyed fellowship and I loved them.  Once again God spared me from waste and gave me far more than I ever could have thought I wanted.