Little Miss Ruth sits fixedly at the organ, (as memories serves me ) she sways back and forth in a childlike movement, as her joyful bubbly heart plays and hits an occasional off note unoticed.
Pastor Tim shuffles paper work readying for worship service, making an occasional wise crack, as the worhip team laughs at his disorganized attempt at organization. I am slightly dishievedled, hours of crying have made my eyes puffy, but no one asks why. They already know.
During that week, I slept at a friends house keys to their door tucked in my pocket. The previous week Mrs Shirley bounced on my make shift bed,pulled the covers off of my head, and told me to get up.Re-inforcing her stance by informing me she would not leave until I did. I got up. I faced the day, and the next and the next, as my friends, my family in God, came together and loved me through-Divorce.
This small church, spent hours at pot lucks laughing and loving one another, we knew each others buisness and fumbled about trying to help however we could. When someones refridgerator died,a love offering was made to get them a new one. When the heat was threatening to be cut off, in the dead of a Wyoming winter, 20 saints of God put their funds together and made the payment to keep it on. When someone was sick, those same 20 saints, made meals enough to feed a family until the person was well recovered, and made sure the family had plenty to spare.
These are my memories of a small church, where when you cried you were surrounded by tissues and hugs, and you did not suffer through a hard place alone.
Since then I have gone to a number of larger churches, and one so large that it virtually had a countdown on wide screen to worship, it made me feel as though I was on an awkward cold rocket ship where if I fell off into space, no one would even notice one less soul.
I went to a big church, where they had all the modern convieninces, lights , cameras , action- an attitude of perfection and performance were expected, but what was not there was compassion. No, in fact when Rj and I fell short of finances and couldn't pay our 6oo plus dollar electric bill, they called and offered to pay half, and I could work for them to pay it back. I cleaned the church for weeks, and then carried trees, and I do mean "TREES" uphill in the sweltering Tennessee sun to throw in a pile. I felt as little accepted there as anywhere I had ever been, knowing from day one, I had been eyed suspiciously as a threat.(being a woman and a preacher, somehow equals threat) I had been tagged with a rather unkind and unfavorable mindset ( as all women with an understanding of who they are in Christ could also be deemed in this body,a possible Jezebel) and in the process I tried to love people who treated me anything but loving through it. It was a big "Who will be Who in Whoville" church with a small Grinchlike heart.
I have watched as friends in big churches have struggled with finances pro-longed illness causing them to get behind, and even as a long time member of the body- where no help wasg was offered them outside a prayer.
I have gone through a series of loss myself, and in the midst of one of the hardest trials in faith I have known,to minister in TN, and yet- did not even recieve a phone call.
My heart longs for the small church family kind of compassion, still moving in the big church. The place where you can not only feel welcome but truly cared for.When your ill, people are bustling about trying to see what they can do to help you.When your struck by a need there are folks trying to help you through it if in no other way than a warm enfolding hug and a cup of coffee.
It seems we have lost our way- we have opted for easy outs, and selfish motives, and we have closed our hearts to one another out of being "Just To Busy" people have become little more than a blip on our church sonar-and the crazy thing is we face the end times , and we should be wise enough to know that we need each others talents and skills, we need each other to strengthen and endure- yet we live and exist with the very distance the devil himself would hope for! Because to divide us is in anyway IS to conquer us.
See the family of God should knit together in ways a three strand cord of rope should knit us, that cord should be nearly inpenitrable.So much so that when trial and torment comes to the church itself we will be all in this net , this weave of faith, together. Unshakeable and unbroken.
Instead, we have built foundations around rock and mortar, rather than around souls.We have looked at whats "New" and whats "IN" and considered these church builders, rather than caring for one anothers souls, and how best to do that.
I long for a "Family" in God that understands each other, cries with one another, helps one another, lifts, builds and occasionally even carries one another, like the sheperds of a flock each one being a preist towards the other, because that is in essence what we are called to do.
What I crave is, genuiness- not just in how we are towards one another but in our passion and love for Christ, and thinking on that, I suppose genuineness and passion for God would in essence overflow into those things, or should.
And if I cant see it where I go I have decided to build it where I am, because we as true believers should be rope makers. Intent on forming cords that can't be broken, and I am making that a goal. If my family wont come to me, then I will come to my family, because someone has got to realize along the way, that babies it is not what we build in finance or in status, or even bricks and mortar that matters, its souls, Souls matter.
We are family- You matter to me, I just wanted to say that.
In Love, In Christ-
Sissy
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