You wanted REAL so here it is...

Well, I hope you have time because this one is going to take a while..
I should have started this blog a week ago but with all that has been going on I haven't wanted to put pen to paper until a wonderful conclusion had been reached that I could give God the glory for. Unfortunately I have no happy ending. And since there is no happy ending in site I guess I better catch you up on details.
A week ago today I talked with Shawn and made an agreement to take part in a new ministry at our church for teens. It has all been downhill from there. They say that anything worth while is worth fighting for and I am a whole hearted believer so I persevere. I am not new to the concept of spiritual testing. I have been here before and God willing I will be here again. Testing means that God still cares enough about me to help me grow spiritually. As Pastor Carney always says, he cares too much about me to leave me where I am. So here I am "growing" but to perfectly "real" about it, I don't like it anymore than setting my hair on fire and beating it out with a golf shoe, sound uncomfortable? Great! Then you are getting the picture. So Wednesday came and I happen to be feeling particularly awful with my fibro and can't come to church. This makes me feel like a loser and an old lady and very much depressed because I knew that would be the night that we would be handing out applications for the new small groups, which I am totally psyched about. Harold fills me in later on how it went but it is nothing like getting to be there. So after that I have to fight through the end of the week at all costs to get everything done for my sister's baby shower which I had to take on sole responsibilty for since I don't exactly come from a family of overachievers, to put it nicely. Anway all of this is leaving me exhausted, physically taxed, and desperate spiritually and left out of the Refuge experience that I have been looking forward to for quite some time.
At about 12 last night my right ear starts hurting so badly that I can't sleep. I, of course, have to be at the church in just a few hours for band practice and both worship services. My eyes finally close and I collapse from sheer exhaustion. I open my eyes what seems like 10 minutes later and discover that it is 7:43. I send Lewis a text letting him know that there is no way that I will be able to make it today and lay my head back down defeated and depressed. How can this be happening when God knows how desperate I am to be in his presence? He knows how much I need his Word, his love, his encouragement today of all days at the end of a long hard week! I cry as I know second service must be beginning and I am not there. There is no way to describe how deeply this effected me. A little later Harold calls and tries to make me feel better by telling me all that I missed. I hear how worship was really spirit led today and how Shawn was really fired up for God and that Pastor's sermon was good, Izzy looked more beautiful than ever, Josh Brown a guy that we have prayed to come to church for two years brought his wife and daughter this morning, my sister in law came to church and went to the vocal band meeting that I was supposed to attend and so on and so forth. Now I am really down in the dumps. I ask Harold to bring me a sermon dvd so that I can feel somehow connected. I am without. Connections aren't made and I can't get this day back. The spirit moved and I wasn't there, it will never be Josh and Natalie's first Sunday again! Ugh!
So things have changed a little bit and small groups have recombined which Harold and I have been hype about because we love that we would be in the same place on Sunday nights again and best of all we would both be hearing the same lesson and Shawn was teaching! Score! I am totally going to take in every word and finally have a moment with God that I can clutch in my hands and my heart and hold onto as this week begins and the testing continues. I need this so much God, thank you your timing is soooo perfect....WRONG! It's testing time again and I am totally unprepared in anyway for this one. Once again I am completely without, yet another test is here and I am struggling to stay afloat. My mind, body and spirit is weak and I am wondering why I can't just get one moment in God's arms to recoop. I feel like Mephibosheth (2 Samuel 4:4) broken by good intentions but still wounded. My heart is crying out for the one that calmed the sea with a single word to still the troubled water in my life and heart. I am tired of floating out in the middle of the water tossed, and scared. I want him to climb into the boat with me and teach me how to rest. I know that He sees my heart and he sees my need and he will not leave me without...for long.
With all of this going on I am uplifted. I see many changes in myself and my church. Since I became a part of the First Church worship team I have been pouring my heart out to God to make a change in our church, to pour His spirit out and to bring revival in our hearts and lives. God brings scripture to my heart everyday, "return to your first love, your first works..." And that is what I am trying to do. I am praying for God's guidance in the new ministries and for the old ones. I am praying that God will do a mighty work in the lives of our teens. I am praying that the broken will be healed, and that God will fill the hungry. I want to suffer from so much spiritual gluttony that I will seek God every moment and never be quite satisfied until I see his face. Am I broken right now? Yes. Do I like it? No. But one thing is for sure when I am broken, I am spilled out and there is more room for God in me. That is an outcome that I am ready to experience.