Nice, long SoulFire practice tonight. It felt good, but it's been almost two weeks since we were able to practice together, so it also felt a little rusty. It's funny how that is with us. We've all really been under the gun from our "regular lives" so to speak, too, so we're all a bit distracted in other ways. But it was a useful practice and we worked out some kinks.
Tomorrow the kids are out of school for a teacher workday. Which means my kids have to be farmed out to friends, 'cuz Mom & Dad both gotta work. Which means I have the lovely opportunity to sit through yet a few more highly entertaining and engrossing meetings. [retching sound]
This weekend is a MAJOR event for church -- haven't there been an awful lot of MAJOR events lately? I'm looking forward to a little string of ordinary Sundays, to be honest. But this one will be cool. All the churches that were started by the original Grace Church on the east side of Des Moines are getting together for one big worship service... and I GET TO BE ON STAGE!! There will be well over a thousand people there, possibly a lot more than that.
You never would've gotten me to believe a year ago that I'd be doing what I'm doing right now. One year ago this month marks some major pain, major joy, major anxiety and depression for me. My mom had her heart transplant last September 3rd; the couple of days leading up to that were some of the most wrenching and stressful of my life to that point as I watched my young little mother (only in her mid-50s) fighting for her life and then coming BACK to life after the priceless gift someone gave her by dying.
Right after I returned home from the stratospheric high of that experience, I experienced an agonizing and altogether sudden parting-of-ways with people I loved with every fiber of my being... not to mention the fact that I had just returned to the work force after a ten-year hiatus, and I was faced with the incredible stress of learning state education regulations for Iowa, learning the names and needs of a sea of special-ed students, learning to navigate between friends and foes among the staff... on top of all that, I was being gradually made aware of horrible things that had happened to people I knew, horrible things that had been DONE by people I knew... it was like the biggest flood of STUFF I have ever endured all at once. I was drowning in it and was not even able to speak of it. I'm still not able to speak of most of it, and honestly don't care to. I am THROUGH with the whole lot of it. T-H-R-O-U-G-H. Never going back.
I was adrift. I knew I needed for my kids to be in a stable church with people I trusted to teach the truth, but wasn't sure where that would be. I visited a small church on the north side of the city for a few Sundays and for a few evening small-group sessions, but something never really clicked. I didn't attend with the desire to lead worship or even really participate in leading worship; they already had a great set of musicians, so I didn't feel like I was being "recruited" as I might've somewhere else. I settled in, thinking my worship-leading days were over, and that was okay with me. In fact, if I never did it again, it was okay with me. Whatever God wanted for me, that was what I wanted, even if it meant giving up something I loved doing.
And then I visited FCC, and the arms of that place and its people wrapped themselves around me, enveloping me in a huge sense of "home" and I knew that it would be okay again. No, not okay. MORE than okay. I had endured "okay" for so long that it was almost startling to come upon something so much more.
Anyway, looks like September is going to be a hard month for me again this year, but this year I have an undergirding of support replacing the threads I was hanging by last year. Which is a good thing. The month isn't over yet, nor are the crises. I'll fill you in as things develop... just be in prayer for Rick's health and for my emotional state, for the kids' health and for their school, etc. As Rosanne Rosanna-Danna used to say, "It's always somethin'. It's never nothin'."
Tru dat.
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