Contrary to what some might believe, our new church has significantly altered our life, and more specifically – my time. Though the work is time consuming (often consuming the weee hours of the morning in order to have experience the concentration needed to finish my stuff) and non-stop, I still LOVE what we’re doing. Our church body has grown at a pace we never really anticipated. We’re only starting our 3rd month of services, and we’re already having around 160 folks. It’s been fun to have to scramble at the last minute to set up more chairs. I’ve been rather convicted over the past few weeks at my ability to limit God and His work. I knew He told us to do this, but I guess I didn’t fully believe the magnitude at which He would do it.
This church, and my daughter, have become a very interesting parallel. I’ve always known that babies grow up. I’ve always known that the Lord would bless this church. Somehow though, I think I missed out on some of the joy of both those things. It seems that I spend more time these days overwhelmed by these progressions, that I’m not quite grasping them fully. Until today.
Over the past week, Dave (our pastor, and one of my best friends) and I spent the majority of our lives writing what basically became a 27 page “book” about The Vista Community Church. We have our first real membership class this weekend, and this “book” will be what each member receives. It contains basically everything you need to know about The Vista. Beliefs, theology, ministries, history…the whole deal. I realized very clearly over the process of ironing all these things out, that this deal is MUCH bigger than me. I grew more excited with each page, at what the Lord is doing and has done in the life of this Community. I woke up today, after putting the finishing touches on yesterday, to a new realization that the Lord is amazing and ACTIVE. He’s doing SO much more than I could ever comprehend or see. The Vista Community Church is only beginning, and we have so much more to look forward to!
Just like the church, my daughter, and the Lords work in her life, is blowing me away today. Everything about Jessie Rose is SO alive! She’s crawling around so fast we can’t keep up with her. She’s TOTALLY curious about everything. Constantly grabbing and reaching…constantly! Today, I just sat back and watched. I’ve been so overcome with how fast she’s grown, that I don’t think I’ve watched near enough lately. So this morning, for about 30 minutes, I just stared. She played. She sang (lalalalalala). She crawled. She held things up and looked at them for long enough that I almost cried. She’s SO grown up. Yes, I know “grown up” is pretty relative, but in this case, for me, it’s a BIG deal. My daughter is growing into an amazing little girl. The Lord is working in her, and preparing her for LIFE! What a blessing to see!
I’m pretty sure that when all of our “life changes” this past year started to shape up, I got a little frustrated. It all just seemed like so much – so fast. Today, it’s so beautiful and amazing. What a gracious and loving King, and what a beautiful Kingdom. How great to simply be a part!
Of course I have to add pics...
