A year and a half ago, or so, God told me you’ll have to go back to [church in] Madrid.  I said I didn’t want to.  He said I needed to trust Him.  I asked why.  He gave me an answer.  I said I was going to wait until Tim brought it up.  He said fine.  Even though it wasn’t technically leaving the church in Potsdam, it sort of was.  It had been a hard decision to begin with, whether to stay in Madrid, or to attend the new location in Potsdam.  There wasn’t clarity one way or the other.  But, in the end, it seemed our hearts were more drawn to Potsdam, so that’s where we went.  As much as we knew how, we served.  We prayed.  We showed up, which may not mean much to some people, but the point is – church was a priority, over sickness, over schedules, over everything else in life.  It was far from ideal, though I think idealism carries with it a lot of unwarranted expectations, anyhow.  We never really fit.  Which, I guess, isn’t so much of a criticism as it is just a statement of reality.  I mean, we wanted to fit.  So much so.  But since my desire to belong has never quite been able to overcome my desperate wish that I could just be invisible in groups of people, going out of my way to converse rarely happened and was easily discouraged, and, after a while, seemed kind of pointless.  Nonetheless, I became fairly certain that there was a reason to be there, and not somewhere else.  For praying, mostly…which, for me, is pretty much the only thing I’ve ever felt certain God has called me to do.  So, when God said we would have to leave, and go to a church that, while not bad in any regard, I had otherwise sensed no leading to be at, I hoped I’d heard wrong.

But over the course of the next year, there were circumstances that made Tim think that maybe we should switch to Madrid.  I never mentioned what God had said to me until Tim brought up the possibility.  Even then, I was careful to say that I might have heard wrong, and I don’t know that what I had heard influenced Tim much in his decision, other than to make me willing to support him in whatever decision he made.  That decision, eventually, was that we should go to Madrid.  It wasn’t a forever decision, but a for now decision.  In all honesty, neither of us saw it as a good fit – we both held out hope for God to move in such a way that we would be able to revisit our reasons at some point and possibly see that they had become moot points.  But at that moment, Madrid was the choice.  Whether it’s coincidence or causal that my relationship with God seemed to take a nosedive over the next few months, I’m not entirely certain…maybe a bit of each.  But I found myself  overcome by apathy.  I attended Sunday morning services, but I couldn’t sing or pray, not anything more than what little I could muster to try to hide the ache in my heart.  I just couldn’t find God.  I was vacillating between searching with all my heart, and running away as fast as I could from a God I, occasionally, felt certain had abandoned me.  I think the worst of it is over now.  I think I’m pretty firmly standing on the searching with all my heart ground right now.  And I think I’ve learned something (maybe more than one something) valuable over the past several months, and that is this:  the only thing that really matters is God.  I have spent a good portion of my adult life praying for God to help me form strong, godly friendships.  I don’t think that’s a bad thing.  I’m certain it is something that is often declared to be a necessity of a growing walk with Christ.  Having never had anything of the sort, save for my relationship with my husband, I would get incredibly discouraged at feeling left out, overlooked, neglected and forgotten all.the.time.  Until we started attending Madrid.  People are friendlier – actually talking to me, and even occasionally offering to hold my baby (seems silly, right?  but as much as everybody always seems to want to hold everyone else’s babes, nobody has ever offered to hold mine).  I haven’t felt totally isolated.  But the truth is that none of it matters to me.  I’m not trying to sound callous or heartless or ungrateful, but I would give up every conversation in a millisecond to feel the nearness of God.  I would gladly spend this lifetime feeling invisible if I at least had the knowledge that God sees, and loves, and uses me.  Don’t get me wrong – it would be great to have it all.  But if it’s one or the other?  There’s only one option.  I’ll take Jesus every time.

(from 9/22/2014)