I know it’s been a while since my last update and I’m not
even sure what the most recent thing I shared with you was. We have a very full schedule. Teaching and growing and learning. I’m watching the kids now Monday – Thursday
in the days and Wednesday evenings. God’s
given me such a love for being home with them and it’s really such an
adventure. We have now done 2 services
at the East Bay campus for Northstar.
The run through on the 1st and then the official launch was Easter
Sunday. We had over 500 people attend
the Easter Service so that’s awesome! The next East Bay service is in May and in
August we’ll move to weekly services. We’re
beginning to see some of the reasons that God has moved us across the country
and what his plans are for us and it’s a mouthful, but one thing I did want to
share with, I’ll start by telling you about a phone call I got Easter morning.
I had missed her call and as soon as I heard her tone in the voicemail I knew something was wrong, after calling about 10 times just to get her voicemail right away I was a little panicked but nothing crossed my mind even close to what she had to tell me. A friend, who just celebrated her 1st year of marriage, lost one of her 4 month old twins to SIDS the day before Easter. At first I think I wanted to just say wow that’s sad, and make a mental note to pray for her, but then the pain started and I couldn’t hold back the tears. I almost put the phone down but I knew I could cry in my friend’s ear. I cried for a few minutes with her on the phone and I think I heard her cry a little too. I don’t remember saying much, I was very thankful that she had called to tell me. All through the day, I’d be going about my day and then I’d feel that tightening in my chest and a knot in my stomach and I’d think of my friends and what they are going through and it’d bring me to tears. Sara says I have the gift of empathy, but I was questioning that “gift” when throughout the day, I’d be in physical pain, hurting for my friends. At one point in the day I quietly prayed to God “I know you made me this way, and I know it’s for a purpose but why do I have to actually feel their pain like this? Why is it necessary to feel this way to empathize?” I shared that with my friend who had given me the news and she said to me the most perfect thing, “it is a gift because you can be in prayer for them”. As she said that it made perfect sense to me because I realized that in those moments when I’d feel that pain and tears would well up, it was my natural response to lift my friends up in prayer to God and ask him to give them peace and comfort them. If I didn’t have the emotional response to them, I wouldn’t have remembered to pray for them throughout the day.
I have continued praying for them throughout the week but also, something else has happened. I’ve always known that somehow God would use my experience of losing Collin to reach people who are hurting. It’s come up throughout the years that I have always felt a push in that direction but I never really knew where to start or what to do. Truth be told I’ve had opportunities but just refused to see myself as capable of making a difference or having the skill to move forward. I’ve been learning since we moved here that I am the only one holding me back, that if I’ll just take the steps God places before me, He’ll get me to where He wants me to go. I prayed this simple prayer Monday, not really having any idea what I was asking for “God, what can I do with this ‘gift’, I’m willing, but what do you want?” Tuesday night Sara shared with me that Northstar has a need for a bereavement ministry leader. As she’s explaining the details, I was going back and forth from thinking, that’s what I want to do and then thinking, that’s too big for me and God reminding me of what we had spent Monday working through and then Sara ended with “and I thought of you”. Here’s one of those times where God couldn’t have written it on a wall any clearer, this answer to prayer, but I was still thinking to myself well sounds pretty good but I’m certain that I can come up with a thousand reasons why I don’t qualify for the position. As the days keep going and I’m feeling more and more reassurance that this is what God wants me to do. Friday I talked to the woman that Sara had her Tuesday conversation with about what I could do for the ministry and what they would like to see done. I asked her to begin to pray about if I’m the one that should do it; she seemed enthusiastic and shared that they have been praying for someone to be brought in to fill that role. I couldn’t help but think about how I had sat down with Sara and Zach months ago, finally taking a bold step and saying to them “I have been praying about this for a while and I think God wants me to do something in your ministry with Grief support” and them saying to me “we have something to tell you, we’re thinking about moving back to Florida”. I still laugh about that conversation because in my mind I began to condition myself to say goodbye to my friends and when I said “well we’ll miss you guys if you move” and Sara chuckled a little bit and said to me “ooh, no, I was suggesting that you pray about going with us”. In the hustle and bustle of moving and doing so much here I had forgotten but God hadn’t. There’s more that happened throughout the week that I wish I could share with you, but it’d go on for 10 pages if I did.
I haven’t been very good at getting pictures uploaded to the shutterfly page, I’ll try to get that done in the next few days so you can see some of the fun stuff we’ve done. Fishing and playing and I even kayaked for the first time a couple weeks ago. I will definitely be doing that again!
I had missed her call and as soon as I heard her tone in the voicemail I knew something was wrong, after calling about 10 times just to get her voicemail right away I was a little panicked but nothing crossed my mind even close to what she had to tell me. A friend, who just celebrated her 1st year of marriage, lost one of her 4 month old twins to SIDS the day before Easter. At first I think I wanted to just say wow that’s sad, and make a mental note to pray for her, but then the pain started and I couldn’t hold back the tears. I almost put the phone down but I knew I could cry in my friend’s ear. I cried for a few minutes with her on the phone and I think I heard her cry a little too. I don’t remember saying much, I was very thankful that she had called to tell me. All through the day, I’d be going about my day and then I’d feel that tightening in my chest and a knot in my stomach and I’d think of my friends and what they are going through and it’d bring me to tears. Sara says I have the gift of empathy, but I was questioning that “gift” when throughout the day, I’d be in physical pain, hurting for my friends. At one point in the day I quietly prayed to God “I know you made me this way, and I know it’s for a purpose but why do I have to actually feel their pain like this? Why is it necessary to feel this way to empathize?” I shared that with my friend who had given me the news and she said to me the most perfect thing, “it is a gift because you can be in prayer for them”. As she said that it made perfect sense to me because I realized that in those moments when I’d feel that pain and tears would well up, it was my natural response to lift my friends up in prayer to God and ask him to give them peace and comfort them. If I didn’t have the emotional response to them, I wouldn’t have remembered to pray for them throughout the day.
I have continued praying for them throughout the week but also, something else has happened. I’ve always known that somehow God would use my experience of losing Collin to reach people who are hurting. It’s come up throughout the years that I have always felt a push in that direction but I never really knew where to start or what to do. Truth be told I’ve had opportunities but just refused to see myself as capable of making a difference or having the skill to move forward. I’ve been learning since we moved here that I am the only one holding me back, that if I’ll just take the steps God places before me, He’ll get me to where He wants me to go. I prayed this simple prayer Monday, not really having any idea what I was asking for “God, what can I do with this ‘gift’, I’m willing, but what do you want?” Tuesday night Sara shared with me that Northstar has a need for a bereavement ministry leader. As she’s explaining the details, I was going back and forth from thinking, that’s what I want to do and then thinking, that’s too big for me and God reminding me of what we had spent Monday working through and then Sara ended with “and I thought of you”. Here’s one of those times where God couldn’t have written it on a wall any clearer, this answer to prayer, but I was still thinking to myself well sounds pretty good but I’m certain that I can come up with a thousand reasons why I don’t qualify for the position. As the days keep going and I’m feeling more and more reassurance that this is what God wants me to do. Friday I talked to the woman that Sara had her Tuesday conversation with about what I could do for the ministry and what they would like to see done. I asked her to begin to pray about if I’m the one that should do it; she seemed enthusiastic and shared that they have been praying for someone to be brought in to fill that role. I couldn’t help but think about how I had sat down with Sara and Zach months ago, finally taking a bold step and saying to them “I have been praying about this for a while and I think God wants me to do something in your ministry with Grief support” and them saying to me “we have something to tell you, we’re thinking about moving back to Florida”. I still laugh about that conversation because in my mind I began to condition myself to say goodbye to my friends and when I said “well we’ll miss you guys if you move” and Sara chuckled a little bit and said to me “ooh, no, I was suggesting that you pray about going with us”. In the hustle and bustle of moving and doing so much here I had forgotten but God hadn’t. There’s more that happened throughout the week that I wish I could share with you, but it’d go on for 10 pages if I did.
I haven’t been very good at getting pictures uploaded to the shutterfly page, I’ll try to get that done in the next few days so you can see some of the fun stuff we’ve done. Fishing and playing and I even kayaked for the first time a couple weeks ago. I will definitely be doing that again!
