Spiritually I am in a dry place right now, and I do not just mean Amarillo! I have had seasons like this before when I feel disconnected from God and my life of being a Jesus follower seems rote and empty. I am not longing for the word and prayer is a struggle. I know that some of it has to do with recovery from the surgery and a little depression that I am feeling from it all. Some has to do with the fact that God is teaching me new things about prayer. Some of my foundational beliefs are being transformed. Getting here has been hard because in just a few weeks I feel like I have gone from regular me to deist, to semi-aetheist and back to deist and now I am on new ground and something good is going to emerge.
But here is the cool part. As a ministers wife, involved member at our church, ministry leader etc I have been able to share these feelings with some friends and they are not having a cardiac arrest or wondering about my salvation and or impending doom. How great is it to be able to share your authentic struggles and feel safe enough to know its okay! Besides a few girlfriends & my small group I have found community in our church staff workmates. I had lunch with one of our elders wives and then with all respective appropriateness today I had a time to share my heart and struggles with our worship minister. I count him as a special friend, in fact I wonder if we were separated at birth (10 years apart :-)) I found a safe place there in the midst of him being able to point me to truth about my thinking that needed changing. I was also able to seek the counsel of our young adults minister and have him guide me in my pursuit of a different understanding of prayer. I admire and respect both of these men greatly and they extended the same to me today. I love being able to serve a church with a ministry team that is seeking community with one another and desiring to live truthfully together. I was able to walk away from both of these encounters today knowing that none of these people thought less of me, and both love me! Thanks guys.
2 comments:
Isn't it refreshing to have that sort of community. Sadly, there are many who never find it and only hear about it second (or third) hand. Blessings to you!
Praise the Lord for His goodness! You hear so many bad things these days that when you hear a story like yours you start thinking that this is something great. Well it is, but it should not be something out of the ordinary. We and the church should function as this. I was feeling kind of down after the evening that I had, but now I am feeling better because of His goodness.
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