Wilderness

God has a funny way of doing things. 

It's been a few years since I separated from my church - my home of 20+ years, where I learned the language and the love of God. It was a rough breakup for me; I honestly never thought I would leave that fellowship. But...we are fallen humans in a broken world and things happen that we cannot foresee. 

Little did I know that God was using this season to make my faith stronger. 

If you know me, you know that I love consistency. Because of the way that my life has gone, I crave stability. I crave that thing that is rock solid, the same all the way through, a firm foundation, something I can count on. I have even gone so far as to say that one of my running goals is to have splits that are perfectly the same, a pace graph that is just a straight line. (After years of trying, I don't think it's possible.) 

Being in the same place for more than 20 years, with many of the same persons, with the same format of worship, with the predictability of connections and relationships (or so I thought)...there's something comforting in that. There's something in that that makes you feel like maybe you're building a good life, a solid life. Maybe you finally have something that will not sink. 

My former church has been through a lot in the time since I joined her. Three lead pastors, three associate pastors, a major building remodel and several smaller ones, a rotation of elders and teachers and brothers and sisters. We had some rough patches, during which times, I somehow became a go-to for many in my congregation. They would confide in me that they were thinking about leaving, and I would encourage them to stay - because I believe that you commit to a body. Not a building, not a leadership, not a sermon series or a program or an opportunity, but a body. And I believe that when that body breaks, you stay and fix it. You become the piece that wasn't there when you needed it. And the whole body grows stronger that way. 

I believe we are blessed by the presence of others. By the consistent showing up of others around us. By knowing who will be there. By developing those relationships with one another and connecting and knowing who is praying for you...and who you should be praying for. 

I believe so much in the fellowship, and I believe in its ability to be that bedrock that so many of us are looking for in a chaotic world. 

I never would have imagined I would have spent years alone in the wilderness. 

But here we are. 

And in the wilderness, my faith has grown stronger than I ever thought that it could. 

In the wilderness, I have rediscovered my love for Jesus. In the wilderness, I have rebuilt my connection with the Lord of my life. In the wilderness, I have learned to re-center my faith on Him, not on the fellowship, and I have learned that that consistency that I've been longing for is never going to be found in persons, but in one Person - Christ Himself. I have shifted my expectations of what the church can be...and of what the church should be. It has been a wholly refreshing season for me. 

Mostly. 

Then, in the past few weeks, I have been committing myself to a new fellowship. It's a story and a place that I never thought would be mine, and yet, it is quickly becoming just that. I want to share with you some of the wild twists and turns of this tale...because it's the kind of thing only God is doing.