"Help me, Help me, Help me"

Sometimes I really don’t like who I am. Do you ever have that experience? The kind of experience where you get to see the nasty little things that lurk in your flesh? I had one of those experiences last night. And at church, of all places!

Anyone who has ever been church hunting knows…well…just how much fun it is. Since Shawn and I got married we have been without a body of believers that we feel connected to. Its hard on the road..no doubt about that. Its not convenient to most parts of life and church is no different. A lot of churches here are big in numbers and I end up feeling anonymous….I wonder ‘if we went here, is it so big that no one would even notice when we are gone?’ if the answer is yes to that question, i have a hard time wrapping my mind around why we would continue to attend there. Now, I know someone is going to say, well you go to church for God, not people. I don’t know if I agree. I think I go for both. I mean, I believe that in some supernatural way God has made a home in me, so I don’t need to go somewhere on Sunday in order to be with God. The writer of Hebrews says “don’t give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing” and I don’t want to give up meeting together…its just finding the people to be ‘together’ with that seems to be harder than I expected. We are craving the kind of fellowship we can sink our teeth into…a place where we can roll up sleeves and get into the substance of life with like minded people…and some other young married people would be nice too.

Visiting churches alone is especially intimidating. Lucky for me, a couple of friends from Ohio are visiting this week and that meant I didn’t have to go alone. I felt braver as I drove down 35th Ave., looking for a church building I had only seen from a website picture.

The church building was about four times bigger than I had expected and a lot more traditional looking at first glance too. I felt instantly disappointed. (Here’s where the sometimes-i-don’t-like-who-i-am realizations begin.) You see I have come to believe that ‘fresh’ church bodies don’t house themselves in huge old brick church buildings. I prefer the small buildings that don’t look like churches. Its cooler, I suppose. I parked the car on the street and fought those thoughts the whole way into the church. We have a friend who attends this church…a friend who is on staff there… ‘i thought he said this was a smaller body’, i thought. We walked in and some girls passed us and didn’t say hi. I made note of that and started looking for other things that weren’t just right. It scares me how cynical I have gotten. It scares me more that I wasn’t even aware of that thought until I was lying on my bed last night, dealing with God about it.

Once we found and entered the sanctuary, the pluses balanced out the minuses again. Someone said hello. I saw a artsy-looking girl with her head bowed outside the room just sitting peacefully and silently. I liked that. Our friend’s paintings were all over the traditional room, taking it from boring to intriguing. I sighed a little relief sigh and felt myself smile. I like art. I spotted my friend and chatted for a minute and then sat myself down in the front of the room. I noted that only a few people had showed up, our friend had just told me there were about 200 people who attended regularly. It didn’t fill up though even once the service started. I wondered why? I was about to make that a negative check mark on my list, when I realized that worship was going to be led by one guy in a t-shirt and his guitar. I decided to let the small attendance slide on account of the simply worship style. The worship leader never spoke- never opened his eyes- and it was a good mix of modern songs and a hymn and some older worship songs. I was pleased. I noticed the communion tables on either side of the room as the man began to speak and smiled. Good, i thought, not enough churches do that regularly. The scale tipped to the positive side.

But then the man begins to speak. He seems nervous and unprepared from the get-go. It bothered me and I was immeadiately wishing I had not sat in the front row. Who does that the first time they visit somewhere? I had forgotten the rule about sitting in the back just in case its awful and you want to slip out unnoticed. Five minutes into the talk I could hardly focus on the man’s words enough to hear them. I didn’t like his voice. He shuffled his feet too much…said ‘uh’ every other word…kept repeating the same phrases and points and even said he meant to be redundant…and then he lost his place. By this point I was watching a huge spider on the floor like it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. And then he played a movie clip- from guess what movie? shawshank redemption. Predictable, I heard my mind say. I knew where this was going and so I started to read my Bible.

It was at that point, staring at my Bible, that I started to wonder if I was wrong for reading in some other text while this man was trying to teach. Conviction nailed my heart and I sat up and looked at his face and tried really hard to listen. He was talking about the lies that we believe..the ones we live out of without realizing it and how the light exposes them. He seemed unsure of his words and it bothered me. But this time I realized it. I felt sad that I have such a critical nature. I felt even worse when I realized I had actually been thinking that I could have done it better. He read John 3:16 from a printed off sheet and I thought ‘he does know that one by heart?’ and as soon as I thought it, I wanted to discipline myself. He made a reference to the lymbic system in our brain and how it affects our life. One of the comments he made wasn’t really scientifically correct. I heard my mind silently correcting him. Suddenly I felt appalled at what was going on inside me.

His stumbling words finally made it to me at that point. I realized God really did have something for me from that man even though he wasn’t a good speaker. I can’t believe that surprised me, but it did. He said, ‘we have to ask ourselves, if a certain thing always makes us react in an ungodly way- why is that? what lie are we believing about that situation?’ I heard that. I heard it in my heart. I knew that was for me.

The service ended with communion. I took that bread and wine and wondered if I had given enough thought to what was actually happening…I was taking the body and blood of Christ into my body…I listened to the words of the song about the wonderous cross and wondered if I could sing them with an honest heart. I listened…to the people singing around me and to the stirring inside.

My Ohio friends took off for dinner and my on-staff friend found me. He introduced me to a few people, said it had been a weird night, adn then showed me around. There is the coolest coffee house downstairs and I liked that. I checked with my spirit to make sure I wasn’t just wanting it to be cool. No, I really liked it….people were milling around and kids running and I confirmed in my heart it was the spirit in the room that I felt attracted to and not just the candles and the old piano on the little stage. I caught up with my friends words at that point and learned that 3 Sundays a month they have the regular service and then the first Sunday of the month, they have the Feast. Everyone brings food in and fellowships together in that room. They have a movie or a discussion topic and then they discuss at their tables. This is just the kind of thing we have been looking for, I humbly realized. A small body that actually functions like a body…people who know you and realize when you miss a Sunday. In my heart, I started to warm up to the fumbling speaker just as Scott told me he’s not the usual speaker. The pastor of the church was away because his wife who has had cancer for 3 years had to have surgery. The man who spoke had just offered to fill in. A Great Humbling imeadiately took hold of me. My friend and his fiance walked me out, telling me how the church building had been given to them in a complete act of God and how they are turning the other half into an arts and community center. I remembered my first thoughts about the appearance of the building… exposed and naked before the Lord, I felt glad that sweet Scott and Holly could have no idea how wretched I am…no idea the horrible thoughts I had nurtured about the body they love so much.

I got in the car and turned off the CD player before it could even start to play. I needed the silence. I drove around for awhile, thinking about what’s in me…wondering how often those judgemental thoughts keep me from experiencing the gifts of God in my life. Here we ahve been looking for a body like that one and I almost missed it because the three girls, deep in conversation, didn’t stop to engage with me…because the servant of the Lord didn’t use the correct words when talking about brain processes…because the building reminded me of my grandma’s old church builidng in Ohio. I thought about how much I like Scott and Holly…a ten minute conversation with them refreshed me. They have several newly married couple friends there… we’ve been praying for that…crying for it…feeling its void in our life. I say all the time that I don’t like polished services…and then I was annoyed when everything didn’t run smoothly. I say I want real people to lead me…well, real people sometimes studder and feel uncomfortable speaking to groups, don’t they? And yet, I was ready to write that man off for doing just that. Shawn would love the way worship was done there..so simple and unassuming and un’rockstar’…that’s important to him and hard to find- what if God hadn’t gotten a hold of me when He did and I had reported to my husband that the church wasn’t for us- what if he listened to me and we didn’t visit together? I felt like Eve.

I got home and crawled into bed at 8:30. I felt disappointed with myself and consequently, in a weird mood. So when I picked up my phone and Shawn hadn’t called, the irritableness in me rose up. When he did call, he knew something was wrong and when he asked, I told him. I didn’t tell him I was frustrated with myself, I told him that he never calls when he says he is going to and then we ended talking while the bus is moving and we lose reception ever other minute. He got off the phone and I laid in my bed and wanted to cry, but was too stubborn to do so. Then the words that had caught me came back to mind: ‘we have to ask ourselves, if a certain thing always makes us react in an ungodly way- why is that? what lie are we believing about that situation?’

that was, indeed, for me. I needed those words to sink in. I needed them before my husband called and I snapped at him and sharpened my skill of pointing out his flaws. I asked myself the question- why? what lie is hiding in me? and the Lord shined His light on my icky innards and I saw it. It bothers me every time he doesn’t call exactly when he says he will…i have known what an unrealistic expectation it is…but insisted upon it just the same, feeling justified in my anger…telling myself how i deserve on-time phone calls…letting my imagination make up reasons why he hasn’t called and then running with it…. i never thought to ask why. but after all these months, I know why now. That sweet man was the servant of the Lord for me and I had wanted to dismiss him- first for being nervous and second with a pat on the head, as if he were sweet but incapable. and all the while, the Lord had given him the bread I was hungry for. I called My Love back.

Anne Lamott says she thinks there are only two real prayers. one is ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ and the other is ‘help me, help me, help me’. I think I had both in me last night.

May our God root out in us the things that we trip on so we can move forward as His bride.

May God bless you today. And as always thanks for sharing with me.

Advertisements