The Journey

Nine years ago my husband and I decided to become church planters.
We left a church we loved; people we loved, knowing that there would be sacrifices along the way. Not long after a good friend there told me that she would no longer have time to invest in our friendship as I was no longer part of her church. I guess I had naively assumed that that would not be one of the sacrifices that I would make. Well, okay..it never crossed my mind at all. We don't always know what the sacrifices will be when we sign on for ministry. I guess I believed that she would support me in my ministry as much as I had supported her in hers. It took me a while but I understand her reasons now. But the friendship is gone.
Not long after we started the church we lost one of our newest friends to a drug over dose. God showed us then what our church would become. Our pastor would come to use the word 'messy' to describe our congregation. A place for those people who may never enter the doors of a conventional church. Within a week of starting we were planning a funeral.

I knew then that whatever we did my heart would have to be invested entirely. In the past we would go to sunday morning service and drive away. Anonymity. No one in our town could say we were believers, or would recognize us from church. Not now. Now we were on stage, out front, in the middle, completely involved, getting messy. I would go to the grocery store and people I didn't know would say hello to me. I loved it. It opened up doors for me to share my faith with people in a whole new way.

The sacrifices didn't weigh so much when the burden was shared by the others that we were ministering with. We felt we were part of a team. I knew that there would be no place in town that my children could go that there would not be someone there that knew they were mine, and would watch out for them. In school, in sports, downtown, where ever. In that way their children became my responsibility too. In the whole shared experience of ministry I felt a bond that had been missing in other churches.

So when another friend left her husband suddenly I felt abandoned as well. She had shared none of her burden and left no door open for our friendship to continue. I felt that I had failed her. She left town and gave no forwarding address. Door closed, firmly shut. No explanation ever received.

There is a kind of intimacy that occurs when you worship and serve together that I had never understood before. John Eldredge speaks of it in his book "The Journey of Desire". The desire for life as it was meant to be. We long for and strain toward the kingdom of heaven. That is what we were made for, but we lost it. We are continually disappointed here on earth as we never get more than a taste. We get moments of clarity when we see the prize and then the moment is gone.

I am very familiar with the desire but never understood where it came from; my deep hunger for more. Lately, the prize has seemed too hard to obtain. It appeared to be a senseless struggle as I have had to give up too much along the way. I couldn't bear the thought of loosing more. Especially friendships. Those were the hardest sacrifices to make. As I have stayed with the dream that we started and others have left. I grieve so deeply for those lost along the way. I feel cursed as I continue to love them. I long for reconciliation. I feel like aboandoning the desire in self defense, to protect my heart. It just would be easier not to love at all.

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land,
where there is no water.
Psalm 63:1

That is where my heart is at. God is wise to my ways though as He has left me with obligations that keep me from retreating. No sooner had I got there when the world fell apart. Still trying to find my direction. Waiting to see what the losses will be this time. Haven't caught the new vision yet, but marching on all the same.