Church

I have done a lot of moving in my lifetime, and am sure I will continue to do much more in the future. One of the most important lessons I have learned in moving, is the importance of getting plugged in to a local church right away. A town or city can never feel like a home to me until we find a church to belong to. I could hang family pictures all over our house and decorate with all our belongings, but things never seem right until we a part of a church. There is just something about being surrounded by people that have your same beliefs and people who serve a common purpose with you. Another thing that I have learned in all my moving is that no one church is perfect. Although Christ is perfect, His church is run by imperfect people and therefore makes no one church perfect. I had not yet come to this realization when I made my first substantial move from Texas to California. My move from Texas was substantial because that was the first time I had to leave a church that I had really become a part of. Fellowship Church was the church where I became a true Christian, and where I learned the importance of being connected to a body of believers. I had a hard time making the move to Crossroads Christian Church in California because although their beliefs were the same, it's Sunday service was so different. For about a year, every time I went to church, I felt empty. With every Sunday that would pass, I would leave critiquing the entire service without even giving the message one thought. The one thing that kept me coming back however was the sincere pastor and the loving people who made that church. What I came to discover a year later was that Crossroads wasn't the one that was doing church wrong, it was me that was doing church wrong. I went in with such a narrow view of the way church was supposed to go when in all actuality Christ was just trying to see if I would still serve and love him with the same heart as I did at Fellowship. God uses every bible-based believing church to serve a purpose at that moment to the people attending at that very time. The way things are done during Sunday services are done by no chance or mistake. They are done because He planned them that way. It took me a little time to adjust my blurry eyes, but once they were set I felt no longer empty. The week after I came to this realization, was the week that I found out that not only was I pregnant, but that I had Graves disease, and even worse, that Makia would be deploying. You see, God's plan was perfect! I don't know what I would have done if I had been hit with all of this information when I still felt no connection to my church. Makia left, and during his 11 months gone, I was sustained by Christ and the people He surrounded me with. My church played such a key factor during this deployment. It was those people who prayed with me on lonely overwhelming days that helped sustain me and remind me about how much Christ loves me. I grew to love that church just as much as I had loved the previous one. When it came time to move, it was so hard to know that I would no longer be worshiping Christ with the same people. As I sit here today in Delaware, I sit here excited and hopeful for the new church that Christ is bringing us to. It's crazy to know that I have gone from a church that housed 20,000 people on a Sunday to a church that served 700 people, and now a church that has maybe 80 people on a good Sunday. I still feel kind of unsteady about the change, but I also know that it is I who is making myself unsteady. I look forward to growing close to the people here and to serving. Afterall, I have come to realize that I am not there to be served, but to serve.

Here are a few pictures from this past weekend. Grandma Betty came for a visit, and we were so happy to have her!