the church

The church used to be and do a lot of things.  

Being the church once included tongues of fire and lots of prison time, persecution and seemingly a lot of fishing.  Tent making.  Purple cloth dying.  Lots of widow and orphan care, lots of preaching from the roof-tops to the dark cells, sending, healing and restoration, forgiveness and perseverance, admonishment and growth.

It is easy to complain about "the church" today, and our family spends an awful lot of time in an awful lot of churches, from the sweltering mountain tops of Haiti to four services this weekend in Bear, Delaware.  

We've heard lots of solid sermons and lots of lukewarm ones,  more than a few not based on the Bible, and a couple outright heretical.  

We have carried our chairs on our heads, smooshed in wobbly benches, relaxed in padded pews and set up and torn down intricate linking chair patterns across sprawling sanctuaries.  We've danced acoustic, we've waved with professional worship bands, we've joined our voices with the organ, clapped with static-keyboards plugged into a roaring generator.  We've done the little cups with the wafers in the lid, we've dipped, we've crumbled crackers, we've chugged sickly sweet wine from old medicine cups, we've passed baskets and boxes and bags and gold plates discreetly, walked to the front to fold our tithe into wooden boxes, publicly.  

We know a lot of the church, from all different places, and we've yet to meet a perfect body of Christ.

But we sure have met a bruised and sacrificial one, and you can sign me up for that Body of Christ any day.  

Traveling is exhausting, being away from home is hard, being in a different church every weekend for every service can be so draining, driving/flying all over to see everyone can whittle us down.

But the church being the church to us and for us these weeks is priceless.  

Last weekend it was Jerome in a quiet moment, hand on my head, praying for my walk, my role as wife and mama, for this upcoming delivery, for Christ to be glorified.  It was sitting down when everyone was standing and letting the heavenly worship in my own language, when our backs were against the wall and it looked as if it was over, you made a way, and we're standing here, only because you made a way and God bringing to my mind 100 times this was true, this past year alone, and restored my faith.  

This morning, it was several women throughout the services, individually, on their own, coming at random times to take my hand and to pray for me, for strength, for courage, for grace, for a safe delivery and a healthy baby.  It was Pastor Paul calling us up before Matt preached and praying for us, as he did when we were the two of us, heading off to language school, and when we were three, and four, and five.  

It's been the church being faithful...men and women grabbing our hands and looking into our eyes and saying, "We have been praying for you and are praying for your family" and us knowing without a doubt that it's true.

  It's been the church taking us in and giving us a home, either in a hotel or in their own homes, even when our kids feed their dogs spaghetti or make messes or have moments.  Last week it was His body giving us their timeshare for a week so that we could have a vacation.  It's been the church letting us borrow their cars, their best cars, when it wasn't convenient for them, picking us up at airports, letting us borrow their carseats, the elderly couple who pushed money into my hands today for the girls to get new backpacks, it's the ridiculous number of people who these past three weeks have asked me about intimate specifics in our lives that they know about because they faithfully read our blog and pray for us. 

And tonight was the cup of the church running over in my life and I was just plain overwhelmed, not by purple cloth, but by blue cakes and baby books, not by tongues of fire, but by baby boy clothes and diapers and a whole slew of the church who simply showed up, on a Sunday night after a busy weekend in the middle of busy lives, cooking and shopping and writing cards, spending their precious time thinking of us and acting, loving us and being the Body.  

Men and women who have come to our home and known our children, my sister who drove over an hour and brought me all the things she could think of that I'll need in the hospital that the clinic in Haiti won't provide, Cindy and Aunt Lori, Dawn and Rhonda putting the whole thing together and providing all kinds of awesome food and the kiddos who played with my kiddos, beautiful and thoughtful gifts from so many who have made baby four and his soon coming feel special and exciting, Doug who had two funerals and a wedding this weekend and came anyway.

The church, an OBGYN with a flourishing practice in Oregon who spends months a year of her days off in Haiti, working for nothing, helping lots of women, like me, deliver well and better, answering my every question, encouraging me, praying for me.  

I have been overwhelmed and depressed this past year over losing the Heckman family, such an integral part of our lives and ministries, moving back to the States this month.  I've been overwhelmed over the help needed, the Elders ending up back in Canada since February, the many changes.  I've been afraid these past months, as many have voiced the same concerns or possible fears that I was trying not to, over delivering Ben in Haiti.  We've been so full this year with so many visitors and so many classes and so many burdens and so much wisdom needed and so much transition and so many uncertainties, and the precious church, imperfect though she be, has been the church to us as we've sought to be the church to others. 

And by tonight, by the time I opened the last onesie with my girls all helping and this church around us in white and blue roses and mustache cookies, I was utterly aware of and met by the Lord, who KNOWS and PROVIDES and has GOT this.  

Has. Got. This.  

Through these prayers and gestures and through these relationships, the Living God has met me with confidence and courage.

THAT is a pretty miraculous thing, that is how He works, that is what He can do through His church, truly change people's hearts and minds.  He is our Help, very often through others.  

Because the church used to be and do a lot of things, and with His grace and in His ways--always new and never changing--it still is.