encouragement...

Almost 2 years ago, my husband & I joined what a lot of people around here refer to as a mega-church. We'd thought it was that ourselves, til we went. We ended up there because 1) we were running late one Sunday morning and 2) we'd watched some of the sermons online and were intrigued & surprised to find that the messages from a church that big were entirely Biblical and doctrinally sound. So, what was a place to go in a pinch became our new church home. It was like God picked us up with two fingers & plopped us down there, just exactly where He wanted us.

We got to know the pastor and many people on staff. We became active in serving in several of the church's many ministries and several months ago, we found ourselves the newly appointed leaders of our Community Group!

I tell people we "accidentally" ended up there, but I know that God doesn't do accidents, or maybe He just makes use of them for His purposes. :)

The former leader wasn't at the first couple of meetings after summer break, which left just us and two other couples who had joined the church around the same time we had. We continued on with the meetings because, well, we enjoy them so much and those two "leaderless" meetings found us with new folks in attendance.

So I sent an email to a couple different staff members asking what was up and letting them know what had been going on. I received back a note saying basically, "Great! We put you and Tommy down as this group's leaders! Thanks for serving!" LOL! My first thought was that the other two "core" couples would think we'd angled for the position and my husband's first thought was, "Oh, no! I can't do that!"

We prayed about it, we talked to the other couples so they knew what had happened...and at last, God gave Tommy a peace about it.

Then last night, He gave us both an encouraging situation to, I feel, let us know we're right where He wants us.

We had one new fella show up. His wife had to work, and so he was on his own, which was fine. We have some "singles" in our group from time to time. The church encourages people to go to several different groups to see where they feel most comfortable.

Our group is amazing. As I said, there are us three couples who make up the core, who all serve in the church's First Touch ministry (greeting, parking, seating, etc... no one feels unwelcome at our church!) and we're pretty much always there when something's going on at the church. All that to say, we're a very chatty group, everyone participates in the discussion. I think that has always made new folks feel at ease to share with us, even though most of the time, they don't come back, for whatever reason... sometimes it's just that they are not consistent.

So anyway, after everyone, and I mean EVERYone.. even the custodian, had left last night, Tommy and I continued to talk with this gentleman. He'd opened up about his biggest sin-struggle and shared that it had caused hurt in this, his second marriage. We also found out that he had attended our former church, so we had that in common, along with having close friends who still attend there.

But we continued to talk, and he continued to open up about his life. We encouraged each other. He's working to redeem himself in his wife's eyes. That's a hard thing to tell ANYone, but he felt comfortable telling us. We stood outside the church, huddled under an overhang because it was raining and talked for almost an hour.

It was a real blessing to us.

What was?-- you might ask. Being an encouragement to someone, having someone feel comfortable enough to confide in us, to ask us to pray for them. It was a great blessing. And it was more confirmation that we're where God wants us.

That's what we want more than anything. To be exactly where God wants us. Sometimes that's hard to determine so it's just beautiful when God gives you a sign that you're on the right path. :)

Do we feel at a loss sometimes? You bet we do!! Do we feel we haven't or can't do what we need to or be what we need to be? Yes! Being where God wants you doesn't make you perfect. It just makes you feel safe... even when the sky seems to be falling around you.

He's awesome that way.

God bless you big time!!