I was having a hard time in church today. I don't know what to blame for it, really. Could have been any number of things making me emotional. All I know is I couldn't make it through the songs without my eyes leaking significantly. You see, directly behind me was a visiting couple that I have known my entire life. My parents led them to the Lord 46 years ago. We'll call them Mr & Mrs S. They decided to visit our church today. They were seated next to my own aging mother--my mother who spent countless hours with Mrs. S seated at our kitchen table, mentoring and counseling her. Not long after becoming believers, Mr S decided to go to Bible college and he's spent many years in the ministry now. God completely changed the course of their lives 46 years ago. My parents were only the tools in the right place at the right time.
I guess I just plain missed my dad. He would have been all smiles and sparkles and stories having them there. Me? I got all introspective and weepy.
As I looked around our little fellowship of believers, I was struck with the possibilities of being in the right place at the right time. Others are in similar places that Mr & Mrs S were 46 years ago that just need someone to be there, faithful to the call. It's a sacrifice for our pastor and family to be here and for many of our families too. It's a sacrifice for my own kids to be there. But as we were singing, I could clearly hear our visitors voices:
All that thrills my soul is Jesus
He is more than life to me
And the fairest of ten thousand
In my blessed Lord I see
By the crystal flowing river
With the ransomed I will sing
And forever and forever
I will praise and glorify the King
It was their voices that stopped me cold. I couldn't sing because I knew. I knew that all the hard work, every disappointment and every sacrifice and crumby part of building a church can be worth it. Because if it results in even one couple, forty-six years from now, singing about what Jesus means to them...
Just when I about had myself pulled back together we sang the next hymn: I'd Rather Have Jesus.
And I was a lost cause.
