Beginning Anew

Well, that's okay. It's more for my own sanity anyway.

Things at the house have been good lately, the wife is getting stronger and looking more and more pregnant every day. I wish I could explain how much nicer this pregnancy is going than the last one, despite some bumps in the road. We're so blessed.

We're at 6 months.. 21 weeks, if i'm not mistaken. In some ways April can't come soon enough. In other ways, I know that we're not ready yet. Oh, we're ready as far as "just can't wait to get Micah here"... but the baby's room is still full of stuff from the move, no furniture yet, nothing done to the walls etc. We've got some time, but it's passing pretty fast.

We had another scare since I posted last, but I won't get into those details here... just suffice it to say that things are okay now despite a few tense hours.

Ann and I have found a church... finally. Seemed like we'd never find a good fit, somewhere we actually WANT to get up and go every Sunday. We spent lots of time "looking", though I guess that the morning service at Cracker Barrel doesn't really count. We took some time off and found ourselves again... a most important step in determining what church to go to. We needed the time to find out what we needed and what we needed to give to a ministry. I guess we've found a place to be fed, but i'm still not sure what kind of ministry we'll land in.

With the baby coming soon, it seems like there may not be much point in getting started on something given that we may have a few weeks in the spring where we will be otherwise occupied. I know we won't backslide though, because we just passed the perfect opportunity.

It's odd that most Sundays we woke up to go to church over the last 3 months we ended up skipping it in favor of being home and talking... probably the most time i've spent not "in church" in my life. I guess I decided somewhere along the way that going with the wrong attitude probably wouldn't do me any good. I may have been wrong, but a break from all the politics in church did me good. I feel refreshed.

The church we're going to is similar to most of the churches we've attended in the past 3 years (due to moves, etc... we're really not church gypsies.. I promise). There is one important difference here (and it's not that this is actually a Baptist church)... we don't know anyone. No one I have encountered before goes here... we weren't invited. We just kind of wandered in one morning. We visited a few more places, but this week we landed at this church's early service and for the first time in months I felt God's presence. I've missed that.

Maybe this is a time to rest, just find some comfort in God and quit being so "busy" about church. I worked so hard in the last church that I often missed God... that's something I'll have to be careful of in the future.

I miss just meeting God, which I shouldn't restrict to Sunday morning (and I usually don't). I felt very distant for a long time. I know that was because I allowed myself to be distant. I also know that having a relationship with anyone, much less God, is not all about peaks. I think the valley I have been in over the last few months has been a good experience. I think the rest I needed both physically and spiritually has helped me bounce back more than ever. I'm actually excited about music again. I have played more over the last two weeks than I probably have in years (church stuff excluded).

So here goes... I'm about to dive back in and enjoy some more times of Worship and maybe start climbing out of the cynicism I have been in lately. That's gonna take some time, I'm afraid.

Labels: church, family, God, life