We Are the Church

      Finishing up Beth Moore's study, "Believing God" proved to be a great decision.  After teaching what we needed to believe about the Lord and ourselves, she took us on a journey down memory lane in a way I never traveled before.  She had us take our age and divide it by five.  My age meant looking at it in ten year spans, adding a couple more to the last fifth age period.  The common question in each age category she asked us to examine:  "Who spiritually influenced your life during this time?"

     The first ten years of my life, my father faithfully brought me to church.  It was a beautiful building, but I remember always feeling empty and yearning for answers never given through the sermons.  Something was missing, but I had no idea what.  I don't wish to make mention of the denomination, because I know that my experience happens in every denomination.  However, for the first tens years, I believe I walked into a building called "church", but don't believe it was the church Jesus commissioned His disciples to form when He said, "Go into the all world and make disciples".  Nevertheless, those first ten years provided a foundation for me to be open to the gospel when it finally came into my life at fifteen.

(Photo just for blog.  Know nothing about this quaint place.)

     In second decade of my life, the Lord brought ALL those significant people that had the greatest impact on my spiritual journey.  It is because of their influences that today I believe God is who He says He is, God can do what He says He can do, I am who God says I am, I can do all things through Christ, and God's Word is alive and active in me.

     The first person came into my life my freshman year of high school.  She invited me to a retreat with her youth group and because of that invitation, I met Jesus as my Savior five months later at the local evangelistic meetings held in our area.  My sophomore year of high school, the Lord brought another friend who became my best friend throughout high school.  She invested a lot of time teaching me how to dig into God's Word and finding His gems of truth.  

     With my father's blessing, I left my quaint "church building" and started attending youth group with my friend. I attended another retreat, and this time one of the leaders took an interest in me and became my spiritual mentor.  She invested a lot of time and energy into this messed up teen, who actually gave her more challenge than her own children ever did at that age.

     My college years brought two more lifetime sisters-in-the-Lord, and my husband into my life.  We dated for only a short time, parted ways, and reunited and married five years later.  All three of these special people are still be in my life, except one, who met our Savior several years ago after her two year battle of cancer.

     All of these people that entered my life during this decade saw beyond this messed up person to someone they believed God could transform for His service.  All of them displayed God's grace, mercy, and unconditional love to me.  They showed me what it meant to be a child of God and how it looked in every day living.  They showed me the reality of this song that sadly I never saw lived out in that first "building"I attended for ten years:

I am the church.

You are the church.

We are the church together.

All who follow Jesus.

All around the world.

We are the church together.