Labor Day Always Special

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT7x3VnrqbA

I think Labor Day weekend will always be special and significant to our family, especially to me. One year ago today we visited our home church Point of Grace for the first time and knew we had found our second home. It was the week after Makenna had been baptized and we had spent the day before at Sea World with our good friends, the Beckers. I was so excited all weekend about going to Point of Grace, while also knowing it might not be a fit. I was at a place though where I didn't care so much about where I worshipped, what denomination it was, or if it even had a sound system...I just needed to meet with God, be in His presence, and experience Jesus in my life. It was no short order, but it definitely wasn't too tall of an order for God to fill. In fact, it was his absolute desire to do this for me, to be with me.

On the way to church this morning, I mentioned this all to David. I've recalled multiple times over this last year how I knew I was in the right place during our first service there. Following our Pastor's message every Sunday, we have a time of prayer and meditation, a 'concert of prayer,' in which we can pray independently, with others, simply worship, come to the front to pray, whatever feels natural and flows from your individual experience of Jesus. Sometimes I sit hunched in prayer. Sometimes I stand and worship. Sometimes I kneel at the front. And often I do a combination of these things. And sometimes I just sit and feel 'checked out' and not sure of where my heart is at but it's all okay because I know despite how I feel, God is still there and is very real and very present and is totally in love with me. On that particular day, the song that went with the prayer time was "Who am I" by Casting Crowns. I had heard it on the radio but had not yet experienced the song in worship. I could barely sing through it. The refrain just opened a floodgate inside of me and I just wept in worship and knew that I was in need of so much healing. And God started to just pour healing balms over my head and heart.

So today should not have surprised me when God revealed himself again through a very similar means. Our sermon today was based on Matthew 9, the healing of the woman who was afflicted with twelve years of continuous bleeding. She was a nobody who became a somebody, having questioned for so long who she was. Our Pastor then played a YouTube video to the same song we had sung a year ago, "Who am I." I just sat back and sang quietly into Makenna's ear as the images of this video moved across the screen. How amazing what a full circle a year has made.

The song meant something different this time as I feel that God has really helped show me who He is in my life this last year in new ways and has continued to show me that I am somebody, not a nobody, and that he doesn't want me to blend in or go unnoticed. Up until about six months ago, I had no desire to really be noticed at church or to be outspoken, which are really not who I am, but I found myself wanting to blend in. I thought it was because I had been in such a visual position before in ministry. I now think it was because I had allowed someone, who shouldn't have been allowed, to have creedence in my life and who caused me to question my value and worth. I should never have allowed such a person to have authority in my life that way. I praise God that He has healed me of all these things and has taught me how to forgive and move on. Today that song and the Scripture spoke to this process over this last year. We ended today's service with "Fields of Grace" by Big Daddy Weave, and there's nothing better than worshipping Lord, especially dancing before the Lord! I just wish I had had more room to dance... wiggle and move.

I've included the YouTube at the top but I think it's a shorter version of what the author produced.

Here are the lyrics to "Who am I" by Casting Crowns:
Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt
Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You're

I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours, I am Yours

Who Am I, that the eyes that see my sin
Would look on me with love and watch me rise again
Who Am I, that the voice that calmed the sea
Would call out through the rain
And calm the storm in me
I am Yours

Whom shall I fear
Whom shall I fear'Cause I am Yours
I am Yours