A Place to Belong

I had a friend "scold" me for not writing in a long time. (Christy - please know I didn't really feel scolded. I don't want to hurt any feelings.) My only explanation is that this has not been the right place for what I've wanted to write about lately. So I've been writing in private elsewhere. Sorry to all my readers - all 2 of you? Maybe there are 4? Funny.

I don't know what characterizes someone as a writer. I've had a couple of my friends tell me that they wish they could write like I do. I honestly don't think I have any special talent. I just know that I can organize my thoughts and be so much more clear when I write. I don't know what it is about writing that is so freeing for me. Sometimes I am so overwhelmed with the need to write, but I don't really have a topic to write about. That's kind of how I'm feeling at this moment. I want to write - I have things tumbling around and around in my head and in my heart and they just want to be free. But it's just stuff - nothing Earth shattering or mind blowing. It's just regular stuff. But it wants out. I want to write poetry too, not rhyming stuff - the other kind. I actually wrote one yesterday. It's good too. But I can't share it here. Sorry. It's really good too. But too private at this time. Maybe someday. Maybe I should stop referring to the stuff that I can't write about here and move on. (These aren't the droids you're looking for. He can go about his business. Move along. Move along.)

There is one thing that I've been noticing lately. It just seems that God keeps showing me in little ways how much He loves me. It might be a song or something in the CS Lewis book I'm reading or a story I'm reading to my class at school. Were these signs always there before and I was just blind to them? The most recent song was sent to me by my friend Christy. It's by Third Day and is called Rise Up. Sometimes I just get so overwhelmed with His love for me. I was going to link the lyrics, but can't figure out how to do that. Maybe you can copy and paste: http://www.christianrocklyrics.com/thirdday/riseup.php

The story I was referring to is called You are Special by Max Lucado. I've read it a ton but kind of forgot that the entire point of the book is that God loves me just the way I am. I almost got tears in my eyes at school and immediately wanted to go into a Christian mini-lesson with my kids. I couldn't do that, of course, but did pray that some of the kids would get it on their own.

I got overwhelmed at church last night too, which finally brings us around to the title of this post. We were singing something, I wish I could remember now, and tears just welled up in my eyes. I just felt so loved. It's a cool feeling to be overwhelmed by God's love in the middle of a crowd of strangers. (I was in the middle of a pew all alone. No one sits by me. Why is that? I must have a big flashing neon sign that says "Don't sit by this one." I'm going off on a tangent here, but it's true. 9 times out of 10, if I am alone, no one will come sit in the same pew as me. The same pew, people! They are big pews. Am I scary? It could start to give me a complex, but I'm not too worried about it. They will sit in the pew I'm in if Elyssa is with me, but never just me alone. Somebody needs to let me know if I'm putting off some horrible signal. OK - I'll stop ranting now. Back to God's overwhelming love - - ) My eyes filling with tears happens to me a lot when I let my guard down while singing in church. I love it when that happens - but don't really want to cry in church every time. Actually I don't mind crying. I just wish I had Kleenex with me. At The Village, they put boxes of Kleenex under the seats. Kind of cool, don't you think?

Prestonwood is growing and I'm not sure I like that. Not true - I am sure now that I don't like it at all. They are already huge but now the focus is building a north campus satellite church. It seems to me that every other word out of everyone's mouth is Beyond All Limits - building the North Campus. I feel like I'm getting lost in the crowd. I don't see any of the people I used to see up there. So I'm looking for a new church. And that's when I begin to feel guilty. Am I running away when I shouldn't be? I still feel God when I walk into that place. I know He is there and is the cause behind all the growth. I've just never felt like an important part of the church. I want to be counted on and relied upon and personally asked to help because someone knows who I am. Is that just pride? I'm supposed to just offer, right? I don't know. So is it OK to know that God is doing great things at Prestonwood and not want to be a part of it? That's where I get confused. Maybe I haven't really prayed about it enough. I don't know.

I've visited The Village twice. I love it. It's smaller - the service is packed - they turn the lights down low and have candles lit during the singing and sermon. The preacher is young and says things like "freakin." He's just real - really really real and I love that. He teaches from the Bible - one time we went through 3 or 4 different passages and he connected them together. Sometimes it seems like other pastors focus on a fraction of a verse. He said that he doesn't want to build a building like Prestonwood - with a fitness center and restaurant and all that stuff. He feels like people should go out to other places so they can be a light in the darkness. He wasn't doggin' Prestonwood - it's just different ways to worship. The Village has 5 services now. He said he'll just keep adding services if need be instead of building a bigger building. The Village is farther away than I wanted to drive, but I love it.

I want a place to belong. I know I have to put more effort into belonging - it doesn't just land in my lap. But am I wrong to leave one church just because I don't like the size of it?