community.

sometimes my mind starts racing a million miles an hour with thoughts so deep.
other times i feel like my mind is a shallow pond consumed by the thoughts of this world.
today i felt torn between the two, but felt a strong tugging towards the all too often ignored deep waters.
it started this morning as i was driving, i was praying and listening to worship music
i started to remember my innocent genuine prayer times when i was a young girl.
i long for that purity and innocence again.
i chuckled as i thought of my idea of repentance during those prayer times.
i thought of myself as a “generally good” person and tried to recall all the times that day or week that i felt i “did” something wrong.
i would “repent” for talking back to my parents or arguing with my siblings or being jealous of someone.
as i grew older i began to see repentance as something totally different, it was more a matter of the heart.
i can’t tell you the number of times i have had to repent for a complacent heart… for jealousy and judgement… it became less about deeds and more about the attitude of my heart.
what i really learned was something i guess i always “knew,”
the heart is the wellspring of life.
when my heart(soul) was in the wrong, my actions were in the wrong.

i find myself in that place again,
searching my heart.
things have been different since we have been churchless.
but not at all in a bad way.
i find myself… desperate…
i don’t have a weekly service to check off my mental chart of “time i’ve given God this week”
so now i’m hungry…. and searching…
so i turned on the live broadcast of the ihop prayer room (www.ihop.org)
and my heart swelled with such excitement and hope.
the feeling of community was overwhelming.
as i sat here watching the speaker began to say he felt he needed to pray for mothers.
he said some mothers have given up all for a season, even ministry, and God wanted to fill them
he said now your child is your ministry.
that we, as parents, are to invest now into our children and they will not be swept away.
he quoted psalm 112:1-2

“Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord who finds great delight in his commands. His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.”

i can’t explain how much my heart needed to hear that. it was like God was speaking right to me. and that is right where i am at. i have bigger dreams for Payton than for myself… yes, i have dreams for myself and they are big…. but i believe so much in her… that if i impart in her this dream and inspire her to believe it that she will be mighty in the land.

anyway, back to the idea of community…. i loved living in community… not necessarily in a “community living” like a dorm (although it was fun!) but living in a community where you could hang out and talk about nothing and be ridiculous and have fun or where you could have a spontaneous worship and prayer experience at any hour. i loved feeling like i wasn’t alone. now i feel like we are one family unit, but i wish that we, as one family unit, had a community we could share to inspire us together towards a common goal. we do have a couple groups of friends we feel are on the same page with us about this, but they all are scattered around the country. i wish we could all live in one place and “spur each other on” towards the things of eternity. and i know one day we will have it… i just hope that one day is soon and that we don’t have to wait for heaven 🙂