Hi Everyone...It's a fabulous, fun-filled Saturday night for Jenny! I'm sitting at home watching some movies, doing laundry, and attempting to clean my apartment. The only thing I'm really succeeding at is watching the movies! However, I'm not writing to share the events of my weekend, although I figured you'd all be wondering how I found time on a Saturday night to blog. :)
I wanted to write to share about the things I've request prayer about in previous blogs. (Although because I am not sure who all reads this so I will try to spare some of the details.) Any of you who ever talk to me or receive emails from me know that I've struggled quite a lot with living in Bloomfield. I've not liked it much at all and have had a very difficult time adjusting back to life in Small Town, Indiana. As a result, my attitude has grown quite negative and seasoned with bitterness. Likewise, my heart has been hardened to just about everything and everyone.
All of my feelings came to a head these past few weeks and I finally had to meet with my pastors to discuss leaving the church I currently attend. This is something that I've been pondering off and on for months, but had made the decision that I'd decide by Christmas. We met on Monday evening and I left still not feeling that I knew what to do, but the bitterness and anger subsided. Until about Thursday, that is. It all came spiraling back and I requested a second meeting.
We met on Friday night again and I was able to share more of my heart and some of what I felt God had revealed to me in the past week. Likewise, they had much good insight and advice to offer. In the end I requested their "blessing" on taking a "break" from church for a few weeks and it was granted. So, I am going to be spending the next few weeks seeking God through prayer and fasting. I am praying that He will show me His heart and mine and purge the things out of me that don't belong.
I really believe most of this comes down to fear. My fear that God will forget me and leave me stuck here forever. Up until my college encounter with God I felt I had no purpose in life. Then it was like God showed me that anything I desired was possible! He even allowed me to desire things I'd have never dreamed for! He rescued me from hopelessness. When I first moved here I even believed with all my heart that this was a part of the rescue and that it was just a stepping stone to conquering the world for Christ. I truly believed it!
After two years, however, my heart grew hardened and bitter towards anything that God might ask of me. If serving Him led me here, and here was "worse" than before "the rescue", I figured my plans and best efforts were just as good, if not better.
That all brings me to tonight. I really don't know what tomorrow will bring or what the Lord will reveal to me in the "break" time and in my "seeking" time, but I sure hope He does speak to me. Moreover, I sure hope my heart is willing to accept and obey what He has to say. I'm still scared I won't. Never have I ever been so inclined to not listen to Him or to not want to. I have such a hard time right now even finding that place deep, deep down that makes me never want to let go of Him. I can't find it right now. That scares me. That's what always brought me back to obedience and brokeness in times past.
So, that's it. That's what I've been asking for prayer for. Well, that and my family and my hip and my overall health. There are just times when everything just feels so out of control, you know? Times when you literally have done everything you can and have nowhere else to turn but to God and He just remains silent and unmoving....and all hope seems gone. It's hard to find that hope again in times like this. But....He did it once, surely He can do it again, right?
That's my hope anyway.
I hope your weekends were lovely!
3 comments:
Jenny, I will continue to pray for you as you seek God's face in this matter. It's a hard thing to discern, I'm sure! But one thing we all know for sure is that God does have a purpose and he could never forget you!
I'm glad you shared that stuff...
Although in some ways I can think it can be dangerous to "get out of fellowship," I can also understand that it might be important to take a break if that fellowship is detrimental to your walk.
I have actually had a kind of break from fellowship these past few months since I am never at the actual service part of church meetings (since I am in Super School), but I am experiencing a real freshness in God in which He is doing "little miracles" in my life anyway. No miracle is little, I guess, but in this case it might mean just changing something in me in a minor way that still has a big outcome.
I also know that in some ways you function best when you really set aside time to seek Him purposefully and set apart yourself from other people for awhile. So I hope and pray that this will be a time in which many "little miracles" happen in your life that will give you direction and purpose.
I know that in my life, something as minor as hearing a touching worship song for the first time can produce a major breakthrough. One time you mailed me a copy of Our Love is Loud and when I listened to it for the first time I weeped so hard the entire floor rug was soaked and it helped to break something in my heart that needed to be "broken."
On Saturday in the car on the way to a wedding I listened to Merchant Band sing "I Can't Wait" and it was the first time I had heard that song and I got so choked up Niklas almost drove off the road. I encountered God in the car in a lovely, overwhelming way and that empowered me to shine and reflect Him at the wedding reception later that evening as I talked with the guests on either side of me at the table.
I read this in my devotional today and I thought it was great:
"Get in the habit of saying 'Speak, Lord,' and life will become a romance."
I pray that the Lover of your soul would speak to you during this time.
(BTW: If you want to encounter God pretty intensely listen to that "I Can't Wait" song. It's a killer. I found it on the OneThing Podcast which you can watch on your computer...that song comes up about in the middle of the video.)
Thanks for the prayers, Becky and Katie. I covet them.
Katie - I'm still going to be going to church and in fellowship with beleivers, just not the one I've been going to....but just for a little while. I just needed a "vacation" from the stimulus and time to clear my thoughts. I'm going to go and try to check out that video/song you were talking about right now. Thanks for the tip.
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