Yesterday was an odd sort of Sunday. For the past almost 6 weeks, Our Girl has been coming to church with us. Baby Son joined the church last Sunday, which overjoyed us, of course. It's been a hard couple of years worshipping & serving The Lord apart from our children. But we see how God is using our First Baby Boy to minister to the youth in another church in his wife's hometown. We are thankful that God didn't call him to a place far away from us because I'm not sure that this poor mama could have stood the pain of them leaving us & living so far away.
But our Baby Son hadn't made up his mind yet where he wanted to make his church home. The last church we all belonged to for many years, well, I think I talked about it in a previous post... so I won't repeat it now, but needless to say, we were thrilled to be able to sit in a church service with one of our sons, and now, with his sweet girlfriend as well.
So, yeah, we had this great early service, then Baby Son came with one of the young boys that spends a lot of time with the boys, came to the second service.
I got involved in a conversation with a lady from our Emmaus community & found out she had a prayer need involving her husband who is a recovering alcoholic. Then another lady, both of them were serving as greeters that day, from our Emmaus community came over, and the three of us talked for awhile, then the first lady decided she'd better go so her husband wouldn't think she was talking about him so the second lady and I talked for some time. Hubby was outside talking to some other people.
This lady began to share about "randomly" (ha! nope, totally God's will!) being put in the path of a man she'd met before through the counsellor at our church. This man was suicidal at that time, & this morning when our care pastor brought him to this lady, she recognized him. She was asking for prayer for him.
Then, Hubby came back in looking for me, and this lady wanted to talk with him about the man and see if he had any ideas for getting the man involved with some other Godly men who would hold him accountable & check on him, etc. We had a prayer for the man and (woo!! chill bumps!) God just met with us and it was like we had another church service while in the auditorium, the second service was taking place. :)
Hubby ended up getting to talk to the man, because we stayed and waited for second service to let out so we could talk to our son, too. This particular Sunday, Our Girl had gone to her home church to try and get some resolution about where she should be attending church.
Baby Son was planning to go with her, but one of the other boys who spends a lot of time with my kids got sick and called Baby Son to come get him... yes, instead of caling his parents, he called my son.
What a great testimony to how my children are ministering to these kids. So, Our Girl and Baby Son had gone to pick up this boy, they tended to him for some time before Our Girl left for home. She will be an RN after her graduation this May, so it was so good she was there!
So back to our Sunday... our First Baby son was out of town with his wife for their FIFTH ANNIVERSARY!!! Goodness, that seems like such a long time, but at the same time, not long at all. So anyway, it was just me, Hubby, Baby Son & Our Girl and the boy who'd come to church that morning.
We sat in Subway, eating our late supper after going to an amazing singing service at our church that evening... and we started talking... and the subject turned serious as it related to Baby Son & Our Girl... when it got to the point where she and I were both about to cry, we decided to head home to finish our talk.
We had let her know that, due to some thick tension in her family, that she was more than welcome to move in with us if she wanted. Or she was welcome to stay for a night or two, whatever she needed. We were letting her know we meant it, we hadn't had second thoughts about it and how much she means to us... how much we view her as our own daughter.
She said while at Subway that she was working up the courage to tell us something, so that's when we headed home. Once we got home, she proceeded to tell us how much she felt like a part of our family, how Hubby and I had filled a sort-of void she had for a close relationship with her parents & and we all talked about the future. It was a great time and then the boy who had gotten sick came back...
The other boy, who had been with us at Subway, asked about hearing Our Girl's testimony, because she'd mentioned wanting to tell it to the boys because she felt it would help them or at least let them know that she knew what they were dealing with.
So, she and Baby Son drove back to his house, where she had left a hard copy of her testimony with him to read, and she came back up and read it in the firelight. I had heard it before at Emmaus, but Hubby hadn't. We all sat in silence as she stood on the other side of that firepit, with Baby Son's arm around her shoulders for support while he shined a light on the paper for her. It was such a sweet time of fellowship and love.
I am just completely buried in this big pile of blessings and sometimes it makes me scared that something really bad is coming. That there's no way my life can be this full of God's love without something in the future that will rob me of these blessings. Or that maybe God is "blessing me up" before a time of struggle and trial.
I honestly don't know, but I am not going to spend my time worrying about the future. If I have learned nothing else during this time of God teaching me about what fear really is and that it should have no affect on me, I have learned to appreciate each and every blessing and not diminish the goodness of them by worrying about things that haven't happened yet, or may never happen at all.
How silly! So, if you need to find me, look under that great big pile of God's love and behind this big doofusy grin. I'll be there.
Blessings to you!
