Thoughts on a Sunday night
For the last several months I've gotten emotional in church almost every single week. It's not brought on by any one thing someone says or a particular song or reading. The weight of life just bears down on me during church. Every struggle, every joy, every possibility, every hurt, every frustration, just…everything. I feel the weight of my sin and the sin of those around me, and I feel the forgiveness and grace we have already received from God. I think about all of the people in my life now, and who might go or come in the future. I think of people who I haven't liked and how I need to work on that. I think of my attitude about things and how much I need the Lord. I am grateful and saddened and hopeful all at once in church.
I talked to a sweet, godly woman tonight. We both love to read, so we talked about books; the gift of Elizabeth Elliot and Joni Eareckson Tada and other incredible servants. Their stories are full of beauty to me. It's beautiful how God puts people on earth to live a tumultuous, challenging life, and then gives them the extraordinary grace to write about it. Surely the gospel is enough; other books are not necessary. But how grateful I am for the example of these women and others, and how grateful I am that God blessed them with such an ability to put into words exactly what so many of us need to hear.
He will give each of us a story. Some of us will write about it and others won't. Either way, it matters. All of it matters. The breaking of bread, the sweeping of floors, the grief and the joy, the tears and the laughter, the failures and the triumphs. It matters because we do it for God - we do it before God. Our lives are our offerings. They are flawed and weighed down with sin, but received despite ourselves.
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