Little Foxes

Yesterday was Sunday, and we know that even God Himself rested after 6 days of creating this absolutely incomprehensible, magnificient universe. He advised no....really commanded us to rest as well. Last year I started going to a smaller church in a small mountain community. Somehow after attending a much larger congregation for over 30 years, I found myself really no longer "useful". For many years I decorated the church, (with the help of others), cooked for a couple of hundred people on Wednesday nights before prayer meeting, did weddings, whatever. Also in the last year or two was a facilitator for Beth Moore studies. However, which I think is the case world over, when you go beyond your 70th year, you begin to see long time friends and acquaintances go in other directions. Nursing homes, assisted living facilities, childrens' homes etc. find them no longer near. The most devastating of all occurences at times is a long time friend remarrying and moving away. AAAHHH, OOHHHH, the agonies of age. Anyway, I felt disconnected somehow and began complaining and griping and crying out to the Lord.....I need fellowship.....You said not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.....You call us family....but somehow I'm needing, wanting more. One of my sisters, Suzanne, and her husband bought a summer home in this little mountain community some years ago and their "summers" amount to approximately two to three weeks during the whole year. But better some than NADA. One Sunday , while visiting with them over a weekend, my sister and I were going to attend the super little Methodist church right down the road from them. Upon driving up to park, we noticed everyone leaving....they had changed the time on one Sunday a month to meet one hour earlier. What to do???? Too late to drive down the hill.....I said...let's go over to the little Baptist Church right up the road. We did.....and I was almost "hooked" the first time around. Mountain people are unusually geniune and friendly....very refreshing. But the "fish hook for me was the pastor. I had heard him once before while he conducted a funeral , and knew him slightly from just exchanges in the normal course of small town living. Well I'm convinced the Lord not only heard my vocal grumblings....but deep inside my heart ....knowing me as He only can...saw just what my heart was hungry for. This servant of the Lord has been teaching from the book of Romans for the past year that I've been attending....a verse or two or four ...at a time.....But he's been teaching from Romans way before I arrived. At any rate , the way He reverences the Word of God and feeds it with definitions of Greek words, humor, even breaking out in song from time to time, well,there's just no way to adequately portray his eloquence, sensitivity, humor, love and sincerity, not only behind the pulpit...but on a one to one basis. His wife .... well....she may exceed him in her ways....but then I've never heard her preach. :>) Probably never will. All this to say this....I can't wait to see Sundays....what an uplifting time of being with FAMILY. I've also joined the choir....not being able to read a note of music. What a different approach to everything .....This Sunday the choir sang a special...I had not gone to practice (or church) last Sunday evening , which is when we practice after church. A choir member came up and said....we're singing a song you know so come on up and sing with us.
At choir practice that evening , the choir director....a simply precious , in love with the Lord and shares it person....got all choked up just reading some of the words of a new song we were going to try. I can't repeat the exact words, but it went something like, "Jesus didn't ask me to come remove the nails from His body that were tormenting Him".... I don't know how to even explain it adequately, but there's such a blessing in the absence of PERFORMANCE, and the most talented voices singing, the genuine caring and praying for those struggling with illness and other difficult circumstances. There's a song that goes something like this condensed a bit...
Where do I go.....Who do Irun to.....I go to the rock of my salvation, I go to the stone that the builder rejected, I go the MOUNTAIN and the mountain stands by me....When all around me is sinking sand, on Christ the solid ROCK I stand, when I need a shelter, when I need a friend, I RUN TO THE ROCK." I thank the Lord for sending me to the mountain........may you have or find that wonderful community of believers that truly receive you as family. God bless.