Overcome

Post 218

There are three things to write about. One, on Friday I found myself back to tearing up a lot, okay-crying, too, and I know why. Something beautifully said in a podcast struck me in a new way, and I'll write about that. But not today.

Two, a great lunchtime conversation on Saturday with my W3 friend, and another attendee to that weekend retreat who was able to drive up and meet us, is something I want to write about because one topic that affected all three of us in our grief seems surprising and revealing. However, I won't be writing about that today either.

Final topic. Today both hubby and I went to church because we wanted to see my young friend S get baptized. I may have mentioned this is a newly being-planted church, and it grew out of the Grace's of Gurley organization in which I have so many relationships. (www.gracesofgurley.org) Meaningful songs tend to make me teary anyway, but today from almost the start, I couldn't hold it together very well.

I was overcome with gratitude for Jesus’s willingness to take our place, the punishment we deserve for not being perfect to be in God's presence, so that we CAN know with absolute certainty that we will SOMEDAY be reunited with our loved ones who have passed. If it was based on something else, especially our own works, we'd NEVER know if we or they made the cut. You'd lose your loved one and just not know. I could not live like that. I'm so grateful for what HE did that I KNOW I'll see her again, and I'm just so thankful.

I left the sanctuary and was crying in the bathroom, and this little 6 or 7 year old girl came in and ignored my tear stained face and told me she misses her friend st school because her friend is homeschooled now. I asked her if she gets to still see her friend. Her reply? “Yes, here at church. I'm sitting next to her.” She was so happy and just had to share it with SOMEONE. That truly warmed my heart.

By the way, the Baptist church here allows this church plant to use their church. It's a beautiful thing!

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. “This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.”

John 3:16‭-‬21 MSG