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I had this already written but I waited to finish, because I knew that I had more church family activities for the day that I knew would bless me and I would have even more to write about… but at intermission at this AMAZING event, “Dare to Be”, that my church family brought me to, I knew it’s time to send this! The Q&A touched EXACTLY on my journey this year… Their mission is to raise awareness of human trafficking in addition to raising the praise and increase the kingdom of God… When they opened the main event with a most powerful version of “HOW GREAT THOU ART”, which we also sang at today’s funeral, and which I wrote about earlier, well you KNOW God is in control with that kind of duplication… Here is my devotion, there are likely more things to write, but it’s time to send and get back to daring to BE…

How Great Thou Art… to have given me my church family, 30JAN

… I was late to the Saturday funeral of a dear man at church, but that’s not surprising because I will likely be late to my own funeral… but actually I found out the funeral started so early so I would have been late either way, even if I was “on-time”…

SO I know there was and IS a blessing to be had in EVERY minute of EVERY hour of EVERY day, therefore I look for those blessings… I know God has blessings for me to share and when I look to work for HIM he always had a surprise in store for me… I know God wants me where I am, when I am ready, and no matter how my state of mind is… I am supposed to be mindful and totally present in HIS work… Even “down time” is the best time to check back in with God…

Blessings… connectedness with my church family, that’s a blessing today and always… My church family gives such amazing blessings to me which come from their attentiveness, their LOVE, and their thoughtfulness… They have provided me support endlessly for years, not just emotional support but they have provided support in everything…. when they say it takes a village to raise a child I think it’s more important to say “it takes a church to raise my family”… and my church family certainly raises me to praise God even more…

Late to church today… It’s okay because here was my first blessing – I got to meet up with someone who had stepped out of the service, someone I had meant to send Easter photos to –  from 10 months ago – yeah well, I JUST found them again in my Christmas card pile (which are also a month late) but that’s the way I roll these days… It WAS a blessing to listen to him… to listen and silently pray for his situation, his angst and just BE present… I was already late, so I wasn’t worried about hanging out in the parking lot, because I realized that I knew God wanted me to be there in that conversation!!!… Then in the funeral service, I enjoyed the beautiful sharing of this gentleman’s life, he was truly someone changed by God… really somebody who’s touched the lives of so many…. As pastor put it, he was humbled by God and turned his life over to serve Him. And this, of course, touched so many other people’s lives… This I also know personally to be true because he and I had a shared a wonderful Subaru car conversation on the way to a conference last April. I felt comfortable to share the story of my brand new faith awakening, and he openly shared his… such a relief for me to open without fear. Such a blessing to hear how God completely changed him, to know God creates us children as kindred spirits, to experience his encouragement in my writing and continued openness… He blessed me simply by being able to be present to do the Lord’s work, which often is to listen… And to share…

After the service I caught up with maybe 30 dearest friends, ever so briefly, some just with waves, but all with deep love and concern in our hearts for each other… one friend seemed to need more help today and having a church family to rally around you is amazing… We celebrate together, we mourn together, we are present together…

God places us together for good reason – alone we are fine – alone with God because He is always WITH US… BUT together, we can amplify HIS mission, we can live in praise for togetherness… Together we can live and love, and appreciate those who fill our cups because they want to share from what God gifted them… This is heaven on earth, this is cross-table feeding, this is where you pay it forward because you were the recipient of sharing too… This is where your vast church family shines the LIGHT of Jesus… This is the WILL of God – to raise each other in praise to have us then go back out of those doors of church and raise praise in others… To tell of GOD’S good works, to tell of GOD’S promise for eternal heaven..

HOW GREAT THOU ART, GOD, HOW GREAT THOU ART!!!

HOW BLESSED I AM TO HAVE MY CHURCH FAMILY…

THANKS FAMILY…

THANKS BE TO GOD…