A Beautiful REAL Sunday

The Lords day has always been a favorite of mine. Even if, at least for a few times in my life, that might have been just because I considered it a command that mama rest on that day.

That might have sounded something like, "Any further requests should be made known to your dad. I am now off duty taking a nap."

But that's neither here nor there really because the point is yesterday I found myself in complete awe and appreciation of REAL worship, REAL church. And what I saw was so much more than a Sunday.

That's what makes the Lord's day so special, when the church disassembles after the Sabbath and and tears down the four walls taking the heart of the Gospel into real life Monday.

And as the church stood and sang, "Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me..." I stood in holy awe of the crazy amount of amazing grace surrounding me, surrounding all of us sitting there in the beautiful country church pews.

Amazing grace has saved us all.

One family after another stood alongside each other, blended together by God's grace in a sin infested world which leaves plenty of room for the church to open arms and adopt others into the family of God. More than any Sunday I've noticed in a while, the families yesterday looked like a big colorful quilt stitched together with so many fabrics, many of them undoubtedly stained with life, with sin, in need of the red blood of a Savior to wash them clean.

When you put flesh and bones on the Spirit living inside of us and walk out the commands to (Luke 14:33) forsake all and follow Me....you see things that look like Jesus living and walking among us. You see foster mama's wiping little noses, young men helping the elderly and sweet church mothers speaking to the one that no one has ever seen walk through those doors before. Because we carry His Spirit inside of us, that's what we're called to do.

We're food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a father to the fatherless and more.

If we fail to do that? We're not much more than a social gathering of people singing songs and exchanging pleasantries. But if we do, we are living out His purpose and not our own...because He has saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace 2 Timothy 1:9.

It all struck a chord with me yesterday because we sit on the eve of what could be the literal jumping in the pool for our family.

We're called to reach out, we're ready and we're waiting for that open door.

That's so much easier to do when you're surrounded by the incredible faith of others who are living the example in front of you.

So when the preacher read from Matthew chapter twenty five about doing for the least of these my heart beat a little faster with the anticipation of leaving Sunday and living it out the rest of the week, the rest of our lives.

I can't do only religion anymore-I have to have relationship because the God I serve is REAL. He lives inside of us, He walks among us and we are here to be His representatives.

I can't wait to live out the rest of this week and see what He has right around the corner.

It's going make standing in those aisles, worshipping this wondrous God I serve all the more amazing next Sunday.

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Community

We didn't even wait for the wake up call of the beautiful snow. We didn't have to.

When the weatherman flashes a winter storm warning across the screen on the eve of a regular school night in east Tennessee, preparation begins before the first flake has fallen.

While the women head to Kroger, the men venture out to the local hardware store to stock up on a fresh supply of sleds. Because, necessities people.

Friends start calling friends and the invitation to come out and play is stronger than the urge to sit inside on the couch with a cup of coffee in hand.

(Although that does sound inviting now that I think about it.)

Just not on a day when there's a fresh six inches on the ground.

So by the hour of nine am yesterday we were layered up and ready for round one. Let the games begin. 

Friends come together on uncommon days to share joy.

Real life happens on all of those ordinary days in between. You know the ones where you manage the household, run the errands, get the kids to school and back home again-and somewhere in between all those phone conversations and meet-up's you get to know the good, the bad and yes-even the ugly about those people investing time into your life.

They cheer you on when you're overcoming, pick you up when you're in a slump, cry with you when your heart is broken, give you clarity when nothing makes sense and best of all a good friend will point you back to The One when your compass is off.

So while I stood at the top of the hill yesterday watching the little children (and the big ones too) sled down and make their way back up again, I sort of felt what it must feel like to finally make  it to the top of a mountain after a long hike up.

I felt like I belonged.

Right here, right now,  in this town for whatever amount of time (or forever) we are right where God has planted us and called us to be. And it feels good.

There's no pretense, no false image that we have to keep up, not that we'd be good at that anyway. By now, these people know us. They know our strengths and they know our weaknesses too. 

They know where we struggle and what makes us cry.

They know what we're good at and all of those weird little things that make us, well us.

They know that Tim is a gym rat and a collector hoarder of sorts and that he would do anything for his kids.

They know that I hardly ever make it to the gym, talk way too much and need to sit that ugly coffee mug of mine down and take a chill pill instead.

They know that I struggle with things like a need to control and when I voiced some concerns out loud earlier this week, one of them literally hit me on the head and said, 

"Girl God has got this! Why are you worrying so much?"

That's a true friend right there.

That's community. That's friendship. That is LOVE.

For all of that time that Tim and I spent trying to seek God's will and figure out just where we were supposed to be and especially for every time that I wanted to assert my own way-

...well I stood at the top of a mountain yesterday and silently thanked the Lord for not answering that prayer in the way that I had wished.

There have most certainly been times that I've missed His good and perfect will and barged forward with my own agenda. You could probably guess how those times have turned out.

But this thing? This planting of one's life and putting down roots thing-well I'm sure that if we would have missed this we might have had a community, but it wouldn't have been one like this.

It might not have been one that sharpened us (Psalm 27:17.) Heaven knows that I need that. In a big way.

It might not have been one that loved us unconditionally either. I need a 1 John 4:18 kind of love that casts out fear in my life.

Praise be to our God, that's what a real community gives you.

I'm forever grateful.

What kind of community does this season of your life find you in?

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