Connecting

Sophie Kate's recovery from having her tonsils removed is going very well.  We are seeing great numbers on her monitors, numbers that we haven't seen in weeks maybe even months.  I won't bog you down with all the details, but those of you who prayed for her just have to know that she is doing so so good.  I am so grateful for God's healing hand on our little girl.

We were all back at church together this Sunday...it has been 3 weeks since that happened.  It felt so good to back together with this body of believers.  We talked about this specifically in our small group yesterday morning and I would love to share with y'all why I go to a small group at church.  It's not so that we can shut out folks who don't think like we do, it's not so that we can judge all of the folks who aren't there and it's definitely not so that we can think of ourselves as better than everyone else...please hear my heart on this.  

I go to a large church and I choose to go to small group because that's where relationships are formed, that's where we get to know each other and support each other and encourage each other.  It's where we become involved in each others lives and struggles and victories.  It's where we cry together and laugh together.  It's where we open our Bibles together by either turning pages or tapping on the app, it doesn't matter.  What matters is that we are reading, digging, discussing and applying the truths in God's Word...we are not called to keep this stuff to ourselves.  We are not called to sit in our closed off circles with our doors shut.  We are called to love and share and invite and help and serve to the absolute fullest of our God-given abilities with a humbleness of heart.

I want to encourage you to be in a small group in your church or to visit a small group in a church in your community.  I know wherever you go you will find a group of messed up people in desperate need of God's saving grace.  Yep, I know that sounds weird but we are...we mess up, we let folks down, we say and think stuff we shouldn't, we are anything but perfect but we also love Jesus fiercely and want to show and share His love with others.  

I want to leave y'all with something our small group leader said yesterday that has stuck with me..."You will always find God running toward the mess."  It's true, God doesn't turn and head the other direction when we mess up.  As a follower of Christ, I have never felt His presence more than when things were difficult and circumstances were just plain hard.  I am humbled and grateful that the God of the Universe loves me enough to run toward the mess I make of things...He loves you that much too.

Ephesians 3:17-19, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."