2021 Reflection

 

On Wednesday, someone asked me, “Who has influenced you the most in your walk with Christ?” The tears fell during my time of worship as I realized that it is this body of believers here at Fellowship has influenced me more, in the past two years, than any one person in my life.

Before I moved here, solitude was a discipline that I was forced to embrace. The nearest grocery store was 45 minutes away. I longed for community.

After my world was turned upside down, I believed that the fellowship I had with Jesus would be replaced the stress of learning how to be a single mom, working full time at a new job in a new state.

But what ensued was The Lord’s Mercy and His answered Promises,

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor^e a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

It was while we were singing “Beautiful Jesus,” I realized the wilderness that I thought would be so terrifying has been a place where I have come to know His steadfast love.

To all the questions, fears, and prayers, he answered them…

“Lord, what does it look like to trust you with my little girls, when I feel like I have no control?”

The answer came from the steadied heart of a woman who spoke of her trust when her 23-year-old daughter flew a plane in a storm, not 24 hours earlier.

“What does it look like to have joy my suffering?”

He answered me as I sat and listened to a young student smile while telling me of how wonderful it is to picture her mom laughing with Jesus, after losing her just a week earlier on her way home from school.

“Lord, how do I love well even when I don’t have the right thing to say?”

The answer comes from a dear woman who didn’t try to fix my hurt, but just listened to my heartache with a heart of compassion instead of correction.

“What does it mean to pursue holiness at all costs?”

The answer came from the lips of a second grader reciting his memory verse to me

“9How can a young man keep his way pure?
By guarding it according to your word.
10With my whole heart I seek you;
let me not wander from your commandments!
11I have stored up your word in my heart,
that I might not sin against you.”

“Lord how am I to teach my children to love you when I am on my own and already stretched so thin?”

Just as this question comes to mind, I hear his voice in a chorus of kindergarteners down the hall singing the “Goodness of God.” A class my daughter will likely be in this year. My heart was filled with joy knowing I am not alone. This partnership is a Holy one. He has surrounded me with such a great cloud of witnesses that daily share my burden and show me who our Heavenly Father is.

The Presence of God that I thought would be lost with all that was added to my plate, is encountered in the very table He set before me here at Fellowship.