I forgot!

Okay, I had something deep and profound to say on here, and it has totally escaped me through the morning! I bet that never happens to you! :-) I thought about just not even typing at all since I can't remember what I was going to say, but I changed my mind. At least this way everyone can be reminded that sometimes life gets in the way of those deep thoughts. But, don't forget, the thoughts are still in there! They might be temporarily buried under teaching a first grader, trying to get a four-year-old to stop interrupting, and keeping a toddler happy and at least down to a dull roar so we can hear ourselves shout! But, God always brings the thoughts back when He knows we need them. I look forward to this thought returning so I can share it with you.

In the meantime, I have a prayer request to share. You know that we are in limbo. We don't know what God's going to do next. Is He going to move us? There is the church in Monticello that seems interested in us. Doug would love to be in a full-time ministry position, but the people in our area whose job it is to help match churches to pastors are notorious for not doing that job. Churches stay pastorless and pastors stay churchless, and neither find out about the other because the person who should be connecting them is keeping them apart. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if God wants us to be in ministry and stay here, he can do it with no trouble. Is that what He wants? Or, does He want Doug to take a sabbatical from ministry? Are we to find him a secular full-time job and just stay put for a while?

Those factors aren't really the request. They are just the wonderments going through my mind. I'm to the point that it truly doesn't matter to me as long as we're in God's will. I trust Him to open the doors to whatever we need to do. Would I prefer ministry? Without a doubt! That is our passion! That seems to be where we fit in the body, and we really have to work hard to fit into a body when we're not in ministry. But, if God wants us to just be church members, He'll provide the job and He'll show us how we fit. I'm not worried about that.

What I need you to pray with me about is this. I am a relationship person. I have this tendency to close myself off when I know I'm in a temporary situation and dive in when I'm in for the long haul. Well, if you have read the family blog, you know that we were invited to a new church for Easter Sunday. We went, and we felt so welcomed. It wasn't an extraordinary church - typical Sunday school, and a very traditional Baptist worship service. It wasn't home, and we didn't necessarily have that impression of "Yes! We could plug right in here! This is it!" In fact, we felt that it would be a great stop-over, but we weren't necessarily sure we would truly be able to call this church "home." But the people just loved on us, something we really needed. On Monday evening the man who had invited us brought two ladies - the pastor's wife and the pianist (who was also Steven's Sunday school teacher) - to visit us. The pianist called me today to ask us to come to their house for an informal, fun get-together this weekend. We can't go this time, but she's going to let us know about next time! She also told me about a Tuesday night dessert night where several ladies get together after having dinner with their families and just go out somewhere for a short time of dessert and fellowship - nothing that takes a huge hunk of time from the family, but something that grants that much-needed fellowship.

As I think about these invitations, I'm feeling so torn. I want the fellowship so badly, but I don't want to dig in and then end up leaving to move or go to another church! (Although I know if I just go to another local church I can still hang out with these awesome ladies.) I don't want the burden of saying good-bye. I already had to do that in Joiner, I'm going to have to do it at MDO, and I really don't want to add one more level to that! But, I know these are excuses. I need this fellowship. I crave this fellowship. This is where I need to be for right now. I need to live for what God puts in front of me today instead of borrowing trouble for tomorrow! (Hmmm...didn't Jesus say something along those lines?) So, after all of that blabbering (and not even being on my original point in the first place!!!), the prayer request is that I will be willing to dig in to people and relationships today no matter where God plans to take us tomorrow. Who knows but that one of these ladies could become a lifetime friend?