Create a Visual...Really?

My intensive class this semester is theology of 'Suffering and Healing'. One of our assignments during the week of class work was to develop a personal loss line. We were urged to pray about
it, meet with God in a quiet place and contemplate our lives, broken in to segments of time. By actually charting ages and losses, with 1 being a ‘mild’ loss (if there is such a thing) and 10
being a ‘deeper’ loss, we graphed our lives and our losses, turning the page in to a simple seismograph. This resulted in a visual tool to use in ministry. It also proved to be an emotional experience. Our culture does not like to talk about our losses...did you ever notice that?

If you know me at all, you know that I firmly believe that we humans must spend the time and
do the work involved in completely grieving our losses. We simply MUST, or it affects everything
about our lives, from our physical to mental well-being. Grief affects our relationship with others, as well as our spiritual life, or our relationship with God. Sometimes, when we grieve, we blame God—resulting in little interest to spend time in His word, or in prayer. When we grieve, we are at our lowest, and that is when our enemy is there, enticing us to believe all kinds of lies. So, guard your heart, be certain you believe truth, and do the work to get through your grief.

With that said, I want to make it clear that (for those who are reading that may not know me
well) that loss and grief are not strange to me. The losses for our family in the year of 2011, were severe and we are still working through—and probably will continue to work through for years to come—the “ripple” effects of being so far away from everything that was familiar to us, in our marriage and family, for the past thirty years. Yes, thirty. For some reason, today, that sounds
completely ancient! And as I write this, it is very clear to me that I would not be able to sit here and write this in my right mind, if Jesus were not King of my Life!

Yes, over the past year, our family has had many moments of giving up the familiar for the
unfamiliar, the comfortable for the uncomfortable, the known for the unknown—many
times unbearable pain and sorrow. However, with each of those moments came an obvious, and sometimes not so obvious, opportunity to feel and experience God’s faithfulness and His
amazing Presence! I praise Him for those moments of ‘question’—because in them, I saw His Hand first hand!

As I contemplated what to write in this blog post, I thought about sharing the major
losses with you. However, I have talked about Macy before…which is, by far, our worst loss…And, since I am now grieving secondary losses from the loss of ‘life as knew it to be’…I’ll save the ‘how I got through it, and what I learned from it’ for a blog post (or even perhaps a
book), far in the future.

Instead, I thought I would share ‘what I’ve learned’ through one constant, yet changing part
of my life. I have been attending church services of some variety since I was born. I thought it would be fun to write about what I have learned from churches that I have attended throughout the years. Yet, before we dive in I should first mention that if I know you from these places, do NOT take anything personally, for what I am saying below is done out of love for the Body of Christ at large, His Bride, the Church. It’s just sometimes, I think there are many things we humans could do to better represent Him in His Body—yet the fun thing about God is that He left
this work to us, as humans, knowing we are weak, and that we are but dust! (according to Psalm 103:14) So, here we go:

First Baptist Church, Eldorado, Illinois…taught me what it means for a church to truly value their children’s department. The teachers I had as a small child, from nursery to beginners to elementary, taught me that God is love, and that they worked very hard to make sure we knew it.
First Church of Christ, Eldorado, Illinois…taught me life skills, how to have a great youth group, and much about commitment to marriage, and to loving God. I also learned about weaknesses in eldership and that no matter what, do not put your preacher on a pedestal, for he will fall off…Also, I learned about valuing the prayers of older generations. Some of the most powerful women I have known in my life, either met OR, continue to meet on Tuesday mornings for ‘Prayer Band.’ The women of that church have always displayed a certain amount of grit
and a great amount of grace, and I have loved them so much for over thirty-five years.

Christian Church of Olney, Olney, Illinois…I learned how to be an adult worshipper of God and how to truly love and trust the people of God. Serving with a glad heart out of our love for God was a key portion of the life lesson I learned here. I also brought five babies home from the hospital, and directly to this church. We were welcomed here from the first moment we walked through the doors as newlyweds. We spent the first twenty years of our marriage serving in this place, mostly in youth related activities…when we left here, I grieved this loss second only to losing our Macy. I write that now, because God has healed my hurts and revealed to me that ‘that loss’ greatly prepared me for the place I now find myself—in terms of severed friendships (which have in the years that have followed by reconciled) and the loneliness that I experienced—these caused me to search out God’s word and rely on His strength to come to my true identity
in HIM! In other words, if I had not experienced this loss, I would not be who I am today, and so I can say with joy in my heart that I am thankful for the experience, for in it, I experienced a faithful, comforting God.

Elm Street Christian Church, Olney, Illinois…Here I learned the difficulty of coming to a new place, and finding my place to serve. By God’s grace, I was given much freedom to do most of the things He led me to do in a pastoral role. I use the term most of the things, because the season of ministry I experienced at this place was truly Spirit-led…and sometimes, because listening to the Spirit was new to me, I didn’t rely on Him to truly work out details, and so I would either shut
myself down, or allow fear to overtake, and not pursue what it was I was being led to do. In this church I was given the opportunity to experience, first-hand the difficulty of ‘women in ministry.’ I have a whole theology about the reason, which will also have to wait to ‘come out’ in book form. But, let me just say that those difficulties help me better minister to women in ministry, if you can grasp that, then my lesson was well-learned…fire and all! Closing the door to my office during May of 2011, for the last time was almost as hard as walking away from the grave after a graveside service. For I knew that the ministry to the women of ESCC would go on, I was just unbearably sad that I would no longer be a ‘part’… and I miss them very much. OOOOOOoooooops…sorry, now I am going in to territory that I promised for another time.

Oasis Church, Loganville, GA…Here I learned how to enjoy, discern and follow messages that were obviously prepared with a passion to be hermeneutically correct in mind! Each week, it was clear what the original intent of the message was, what was going on at that time, to invoke such a message, and what we can do as a current day audience to apply the truth presented that day to our lives. I learned that good worship music is a relative term…and a choir comprised of all kinds of people is an amazing thing! I love going back there…thank goodness sermons that are available online!

RockBridge Church, Dalton, GA…In this place I have learned how to truly attend church and blend in to the wood work. Don’t worry, mom, I still love to serve, it is just that the nature of our ‘job’ affords little opportunity to become involved in serving within the church, itself. The other lesson I am afforded to learn here is how to take (up to 8) teenagers to church each week, teach them that they are to pay attention and respect those around them, for most of those we take have not spent much time in church services in their lives.

To be sure, there are many churches I have attended throughout the years that have done amazing things for me, personally, and for ministries that I am or have been involved in.

Wentzville Christian Church, Wentzville, MO...the ladies from this church took a variety of Macy's clothing and turned them in to a beautiful quilt...out of their love!

Antioch Christian in Odessa, TX....gave housing to our youth group when we passed through there on our way to Mexico to build a house.

To name a couple...

I was able to recently attend a church service where amazing, supernatural things were beginning to happen within the congregation and the preacher was excited about it—yet he was humble enough to remind them that even he didn’t have the answers for what was going on! That’s where I want to live—on the edge of my seat—not being able to understand and explain everything that is going on! For if I can explain it all then I am not trusting Our God—Just look around—for He is Creator of the Universe—Completely Other—Worthy of All Praise!