By Kiera Rich – KRich13@bellsouth.net
I didn’t go to church this morning. Instead, I lounged on the couch chain-sucking cough drops while watching re-re-re-re-re-runs of M*A*S*H. So Jeff went to church by himself; but, not without instructions! He had a delivery to make to a very sweet young girl. This girl is the daughter of some friends of ours and a few months ago, she graced our refrigerator with her beautiful drawing of an orange horse. As a thank you for the horse, I made a colorful poster with her name on it.
However, Jeff returned home with the poster. “They weren’t there,” he said. “I looked in their usual place and asked around. Nobody had seen them today.”
His statement struck me in an odd way because of the phrase, “Their usual place.” As an adult, I’ve been a member of exactly three churches. In all three of them, I had a usual place — a place where I sat every week without fail. Interestingly, I always sat by the same people every week because everyone else had a usual place too.
This got me to thinking about having a “usual place” in God’s Kingdom. I’ve lived in Atlanta now for exactly 524 days. One would think by now that I would be adjusted to my new surroundings. I am well adjusted to some degree. I can now go to the mall by myself without living in mortal fear of never finding my way back home. I’ve learned that if a driver sticks their hand out the window, they intend to merge even if the space available is only slightly bigger than a Matchbox car. Lizards crawling out from under the Pepsi machine during my workout no longer faze me and Jeff’s church has finally become “our” church. But I still struggle.
My struggle has been in finding what God has for me here. This is the first time in my Christian life that I’ve ever had to work at it. In the past, God has made my mission abundantly clear to me. Has it always been easy? No. It has not. I wish you could hear me laughing here because it has been so NOT easy at times.
For example, a few years ago, I was absolutely certain that I was supposed to be a small group leader for a bunch of girls who were slightly south of being teenagers. I didn’t feel like I possessed one skill which qualified me for the position. Sure, I used to be a pre-teen girl; but, I don’t remember any of it. That particular phase of my life was just so awkward and entirely too painful to waste space in my long term memory so I blocked it all out. I think.
I had nothing to offer. Or so I thought. But along the way, I discovered I did have was a tender heart, a creative mind and the desire to do what God wanted me to do. I’m not sure, if you asked those girls now, that they would remember any of our lessons. I’m not sure if I ever showed them even the slightest glimpse of God. But I do know that I listened to them and I cared about them and I loved them with all my heart. And I think sometimes that’s everything a pre-teen girl needs — to be respected and loved and valued, unconditionally, by another person.
But since I’ve moved, God hasn’t been as clear about what He wants from me. I’ve dabbled a bit in the things I used to do but haven’t really felt “plugged in”. It wasn’t until today when Jeff was talking about our friends and their usual place in the sanctuary, that I had a bit of an epiphany.
Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. Maybe what God has for me here has nothing to do with writing Christian drama or teaching Sunday school or leading a small group of preteen girls or any of the things I’ve done in the past. Maybe, in my effort to find my niche, I’ve simply been getting in God’s way. Why this never occurred to me is startling, to say the least. It’s extremely humbling to say the most.
On his CD “The Way Home” Wayne Watson sings a song called “Growing”. At one point in the song, the lyrics are “I’m growing. I don’t like it. I’m growing and it hurts.”
Yes, Godly growth hurts. It hurts a lot but my mind is whirling with the possibilities. I still don’t know what God has in store for me but finally I’m excited to find out. Don’t get me wrong, trying new things with ease will never be part of my nature. It will always be a struggle and I will never like it. I don’t like to be pushed out of my usual place. Even by God. But, I think maybe I’m finally ready.
And maybe the desire and willingness to vacate my usual place is simply what God has wanted from me all along.
