Changes

We switched churches a couple of years ago. To be honest, I never expected it to happen, and didn't really know what to do other than to follow what God was putting on our hearts. My husband and I had attended the same church for over 25 years. It was the first church I became of a member of, the church we were married in, the church all our kids were dedicated in.

It was where I first became involved in Women’s ministries, Bible studies, volunteering for endless positions and ultimately discovered a place to use my gifts. We loved the Christmas Eve services, the fellowship with our friends, and the amazing mentors that God brought into our lives.

When He released us from that church, it was scary.

I was sad to say goodbye to the history we had there, the comfort of familiar faces, a routine we understood. But we were also relieved. Not everything about our time there was positive. I’d had several interactions with church members that were simply hurtful, and I was over-committed and overwhelmed. Instead of receiving a good word and spending time in worship, our hearts had become critical and our minds too full of “behind the scenes” drama to focus on God.

So we took time to pray, and found ourselves drawn to the same church. A church, where we only knew a couple of other people. But we went anyway without the expectation of joining every group, leading something, volunteering for this, or helping with that. We just went to worship.

The familiar faces were gone and our relationship was strengthened in a new way as we navigated through the unfamiliar building together. Church wasn’t about any of the things we'd known before ~ it wasn’t about finding our group and sitting in the same place each week. It was just about being faithful and showing up, sitting back to refill instead of constantly pouring out.

We both knew how important that is to growing in our faith. We’re healing, resting, and definitely enjoying. Delighting in God and looking forward each Sunday to spending time together in worship. Being called away from our comfort zone was a challenge, but choosing to obey God has blessed us in ways we would never have imagined.

Blessings