A story about a woman.
She is misunderstood, slandered, blamed, scarred...
Disdained by a world who can't understand her.
But she is dynamic, diverse, beautiful and full of life.
She carries a mission.
She has carried it for thousands of years.
There were times she wandered...
Times where the mission was unclear but she
continued her work.
She continues it today...
And the ONE that stood by her championed her...
picked her up when she was exhausted and lost.
HE was the same One who gave her the mission
she tirelessly pursues...
JESUS!
She is the church.
She is us.
2000 years ago Jesus set a movement into motion.
A movement so significant that the Bible calls it His bride.
And today she stands powerful, creative, filled with purpose.
She is not dying.
She is not in decline.
Her best days are ahead.
The next big thing is here.
It's always been here.
It's her, it's us, it's you, it's Him.
A year and a half ago, church was a nasty word to me.
I cringed when I heard it.
Regardless of my love for Christ, I wanted to steer clear of everything about it.
I had been so hurt by my home church, I wanted no part of it. None!
I cried every time I thought about it.
Not long after we moved from Camp Coq to Port au Prince, that same year, new friends encouraged us to try a new church.
I knew I needed to go....
that had been ingrained since I was little...
but I didn't want to.
I went through the motions,
I listened to the words that were shared,
I sang the songs...
All while crying and begging God to reinstate what church meant.
Surely what my family had experienced
was not what He had in mind
when He referred to His church...His bride.
Because He's a God who hears and answers, I began to embrace and even appreciate group worship again.
But I held onto the pain for a while.
And then my hurt turned into anger, as is common with grief.
And then...
Then, I started letting it go....on purpose but without even knowing it.
I continued to cry out to God.
I pleaded for the joy of my salvation to be restored.
I attended worship again and again, sometimes against my 'want-to'.
I bowed my head.
And with trembling hands I raised my heart once again
and offered it to the One who told me I could trust Him
from the very beginning of our relationship.
He knows all about pain. He knows all about sacrifice. And He pursued me anyway.
He pursued me with a promise. The same promise that He gave Joshua... "As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you or forsake you. .... Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
I started to accept this new God-given community that surrounded us while limping through the process that is forgiveness and I started to get excited about the idea of worship through church again.
I even got to experience a night of worship with the artists on the OutCry Tour
a few weeks ago with John. They played the video (above) there.
As I sang in my seat with some of my favorite artists, the ice started to melt.
I melted as God whispered to my heart,
"You are MY church. Share what I've done in you. Please."
It's her...It's me...It's us...It's HIM!