Some Rambling Thoughts about Lately....

This past month has been a weird, ridiculous ride of emotion for me. This post is long and going to probably ramble a lot. I don’t know if it all makes sense, it’s just a way for me to (sort of) summarize what my mind and my heart have been going through recently. I don’t know why—or I guess, I don’t know why this is all happening now? I started the beginning of November in a bit of a funk, a little mini-depression about being alone, being single (what’s new, right?). For the first couple weeks it was constantly on my mind, wondering why I haven’t found anyone yet, what was wrong with me, anger that it wasn’t me but that it was everyone around me. I felt it all. This came to a head on November 18, when my homegroup and I met up at our church’s new building for an open house. Afterwards, we all went to Chick-fil-A. One by one each girl told about their relationships, from planning weddings, to meeting family, to second dates, to talking on the phone. As they spoke, I kept keeping a tally in my head, “Well, it’s not just me alone, there’s still ____ and ____ ”…which changed to, “Well, there’s still _____.” And as the last girl told about her recent date, I sat there in the booth, ready and willing to break down into tears. Everyone but me, I thought, of course. I literally cried out to God that night before bed, just crying…Lord please stop me from feeling this way!!! If I’m never going to be married, please take this desire from my heart! I was so frustrated and angry and sad and hurt. It felt like a bit of a relief to cry to God, to speak to him openly and honestly. I don’t think I’ve done it enough. And low and behold, it opened the floodgates for me…

Since then, or really, even a little before that night, I’ve just been so emotional. And this past week was no different. On Thanksgiving, the pastor of my church, Matt Chandler, had a seizure. They discovered the cause of this seizure was a “mass” on his brain. You see, the timing was conveniently weird. That weekend our church was holding its last services in our old building before moving to the new one. As a result of this happening, he was obviously not there that weekend. As we held services in that building for the last time, we did not know what was ahead for our pastor. And I found that I had to check my heart. Why did I love this place? Did I love this place because of one man (that one man being Matt Chandler, not Jesus Christ)? Did I love this place because of the way the building was “worn-in”? Why was I here? Did I show up each Sunday to hear funny analogies about biblical truths? Or did I show up to hear biblical truths? Did I show up because I wanted to hear God’s word as told by Matt Chandler? Or did I show up because I wanted to hear God’s word?

As I thought a lot about this, I thought of what I really loved about my church. I love that there IS truth spoken, regardless of who speaks it…Matt, Josh, Bleecker, Charissa through our Little Village…whoever. I love that my church leadership values prayer. I’ll always remember the first time I showed up to greet for a service. Here we are just ready to hand out bulletins and hold a door, not a big deal. And yet, how did we begin our service? We began in prayer—prayer to our God that those who enter this building would know him. That’s what I loved. I love the constant push to glorify God. I love that the focus is Jesus Christ. Romans 11:36- “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
So today, as our pastor undergoes brain surgery, I am left to check my heart again. My pastor “tweeted” this morning before he went in for surgery, “Jesus you are my great reward...your Kingdom come your will be done.” And in reading that, to be honest, I got terrified. I was terrified because I knew that there was nothing that we could do. I immediately began to think, Sure we could start a Facebook group with over 30,000 members who are praying for Matt. Sure we could “send one up” to Jesus on his behalf, we could fast, we could pray, we could hope…but if the Lord wants him, he’ll take him and there’s nothing we can do about it.

And in that thought I was stopped by the Lord. Why should I be terrified? What if the Lord called him home today or tomorrow or the next, do I think that Matt would get to heaven and say, “Man, Jesus, you mind if I go back? I mean heaven is great and all, yeah the streets of gold are nice…but I have a wife, I have kids…” NO! And in the same way, if the Lord wants to heal him completely and give Matt Chandler and his family 40 years at The Village, he will. So, I confess that my trust in the Lord has wavered. I confess that my prayers to the Lord have been selfish. I have had a really hard time praying, “Your will be done”, cause what if His will isn’t what I want to happen? And the thought came to me, “release.” To me, being able to honestly, even perhaps reluctantly pray, “Lord, your will be done” is like a great release. It’s release of pride, selfishness, silly ideas of how much power I have, even sillier ideas of how I have it all under control, a release of ME and a turning to the LORD, where my heart should be anyway. Maybe this is how he uses this situation with my pastor to work on me…no, I think this IS how he uses this situation to work on me, at least one of the ways...

As we wait for word on our pastor, I pray Lord and confess my selfishness and look to you for your will to be done and for you to give me peace. Isaiah 26:3, "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trust in you."

It has been my privilege to pray for my pastor over the course of this week and to give him over to the Lord. So far, through this all, the Lord has shown me His GOODNESS and His MIGHT. It certainly kept me in continuous conversations with the Lord…how wonderful to talk with Him and be in His presence and in His care? How wonderful to worship a God who is GOOD? Thank you Lord for being ALL.

Romans 11:36- “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”