I often hear people talking about "church" and how they just don't find the need for church or they've been burned by the church. I get that. I totally do. Church can be uncomfortable, it can be messy, it can be painful. Why? Because we're all broken people. I always joked that if I found a perfect church as soon as I joined it'd be far from perfect. :)
In all seriousness though its not easy finding a church to call "home". I think once you've found it you just know. I've been in many churches over the years and I've never ever seen a church work the way I think the church worked in the bible. That is until we moved here. Nope, we didn't find the perfect church, we didn't find perfect people. Not one bit. We found broken people to go with more broken people, people that look just as broken as us. The difference is that in our brokenness the deepest desire within us is to reflect Jesus. To grow deeper in our walk with God and to seek Him with our whole hearts. We walk out the tough stuff with one another, we don't sweep things under the rug, we hold one another accountable, we weep when one of us weeps, we laugh when someone is laughing, we hold one anothers arms up when things are tough. In fact church isn't really about "us" anyways, its about iron sharpening iron, the gospel, and Gods glory.
Case in point, when we were in Africa someone was staying in our house to make sure things kept running and ate the food in our fridge so it didn't go bad. We had someone here to prepare things before our kids came back from Oregon, they also picked them up at the airport and stocked the house with the basics. Someone finished the girls' room and installed the new car seat in my car when it arrived in the mail. (because I had forgotten to order it before we left) Still others woke up in the wee hours of the morning to make sure we were prayed for round the clock while we were in Ethiopia and prayed double time when things were tough for us. Our house was spotlessly clean when we got home, our yard had been raked and the pool resurrected from its pond like state. Not only that, an arsenal of cheerleaders were waiting to welcome us home at the airport, to celebrate with us, to rejoice in what God had done. (No this wasn't a freak out Zahra moment, we reserved the right to cancel a big greeting should she need that but we knew her sweet personality and she embraced it yet knew the safety of mommy or daddy's arms) Then for the past 10 days we've had meals arriving each evening to give us a break from cooking as we adjust to our new family.
Our Church is truly a family, the church is supposed to be a family, the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus both within the church and outside the church. A picture of Jesus' love for us played out in daily life. We get to do life together, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
This past weekend we celebrated the resurrection of our King with our church family. Normally I wouldn't have taken Zahra out in a crowd this early but it was Easter and I couldn't imagine missing out on this celebration of life. Little Miss Z has been doing so well and unlike her brother stays close to us especially when she's nervous which made it easy to keep her close and wear the sling. She did fabulous!
In all seriousness though its not easy finding a church to call "home". I think once you've found it you just know. I've been in many churches over the years and I've never ever seen a church work the way I think the church worked in the bible. That is until we moved here. Nope, we didn't find the perfect church, we didn't find perfect people. Not one bit. We found broken people to go with more broken people, people that look just as broken as us. The difference is that in our brokenness the deepest desire within us is to reflect Jesus. To grow deeper in our walk with God and to seek Him with our whole hearts. We walk out the tough stuff with one another, we don't sweep things under the rug, we hold one another accountable, we weep when one of us weeps, we laugh when someone is laughing, we hold one anothers arms up when things are tough. In fact church isn't really about "us" anyways, its about iron sharpening iron, the gospel, and Gods glory.
Case in point, when we were in Africa someone was staying in our house to make sure things kept running and ate the food in our fridge so it didn't go bad. We had someone here to prepare things before our kids came back from Oregon, they also picked them up at the airport and stocked the house with the basics. Someone finished the girls' room and installed the new car seat in my car when it arrived in the mail. (because I had forgotten to order it before we left) Still others woke up in the wee hours of the morning to make sure we were prayed for round the clock while we were in Ethiopia and prayed double time when things were tough for us. Our house was spotlessly clean when we got home, our yard had been raked and the pool resurrected from its pond like state. Not only that, an arsenal of cheerleaders were waiting to welcome us home at the airport, to celebrate with us, to rejoice in what God had done. (No this wasn't a freak out Zahra moment, we reserved the right to cancel a big greeting should she need that but we knew her sweet personality and she embraced it yet knew the safety of mommy or daddy's arms) Then for the past 10 days we've had meals arriving each evening to give us a break from cooking as we adjust to our new family.
Our Church is truly a family, the church is supposed to be a family, the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus both within the church and outside the church. A picture of Jesus' love for us played out in daily life. We get to do life together, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
This past weekend we celebrated the resurrection of our King with our church family. Normally I wouldn't have taken Zahra out in a crowd this early but it was Easter and I couldn't imagine missing out on this celebration of life. Little Miss Z has been doing so well and unlike her brother stays close to us especially when she's nervous which made it easy to keep her close and wear the sling. She did fabulous!
We are so blessed to be able to parent these little people. (and the bigger people I'm in denial about growing up)
Our family. Gods grace is enough, poured out for us, uniting us as a family all in time for Easter. What an incredible blessing.
This picture below is a beautiful reminder of our heavenly Fathers love and grace. The Waulks brought little Karis home a week before we had Zahra forever. Both on two different continents experiencing Gods perfect timing and faithfulness in our lives. These dad's love their little girls!
Adoption is a beautiful picture of the body of Christ. We've experienced the love of Jesus, what He's done for us. We've experienced the incredible gift of adoption, no its not always perfect but neither is my personal walk with Christ. He is perfect in my weakness. HE covers it. HE covers the hard in adoption. He covered it at the cross. We get to walk with Him, He allows us the privilege of adopting and He calls the church to walk it out with us. Yes, we are ALL commanded to do something about the orphans and widows. We've experienced what its like to have a church that has walked this road of adoption with us a church that stands beside us in the good and the bad. We are so grateful. We love you Lifebridge Family!!!
3 comments:
AMEN! So glad you have that church family!!!! What an awesome support and team of Christ in Action.
**Where do you go???
My favorite part was helping you by eating your food. : ) What are friends for?! : )
Love this! I didn't know how MUCH your church could be a family until we started this journey. I expected it to be hard, but our church family stepped up in SOO many ways (especially since our family doesn't live near us) it was amazing! What a blessing to find what you have found.
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