Wednesday's Night of Worship

For the first time in years, probably decades, Wayne and I attended church on Wednesday evening. Once again, we were so blessed. Once again, we experienced something familiar to us in an unfamiliar way. We had communion but not the way we are used to having communion. We are accustomed to having wafers and juice brought to us in a more formal manner. There's nothing wrong with that and we've done it MANY times and been blessed by that method of communion all of our lives. However, tonight, at Lifepoint, while the band played and sang, each individual, couple, and family walked up to the "alter", stood in front of the empty cross and broke the bread, the body of Christ, and dipped it in the juice, blood of Christ. We experienced the "remembrance" of Christ together while in the presence of the empty cross which symbolized where Jesus died but didn't remain. No one was pressured or required to worship in this manner but it was left up to the individual. As the band started playing, Wayne grabbed my hand and said, let's not wait for the others, let's be the first. It was very special. Jessica and Bryant (who went to children's church) came to church with us but Jessica didn't follow us up to the communion table. That was okay. However, she joined us while we were still up there and we waited while she worshipped through communion. Then as we sat down MANY people stood and headed for the communion table. Tracy and her family were among them. I believe this was the first time that Tracy's family had been to Lifepoint on a Wednesday and Tracy had only ever had communion once before as a teenager while attending church with a friend. As I sat there singing and feeling the presence of God, I looked over at Tracy and saw her wiping tears from her face as she waited her turn. I didn't know exactly why she was crying, but only assumed it was anticipating the experience of sharing communion together as a family. I looked at Wayne and he said, "It's okay, go up there with her." So, I excused my way through the crowd, then stood behind her, wrapped my arms around her then told her that I loved her. I went back to my seat as they approached the table. Tracy, Marc and Haley stood in front of the same communion table and shared their first communion as a family. It was such a blessing to me. We stopped by their house on the way home and Tracy and I talked a little about the experience. After we got home Wayne said, I felt like Brother Joe was talking to me tonight. I told him that Tracy always says that Brother Joe has an amazing ability to share his message and have many people walk away saying, "He was talking to me!" In Brother Joe's messages, he always talks about how he personally handles things, good and bad. Since he speaks in the first-person, you don't feel like he's preaching at you but humbling himself and letting us know that he too is human and he struggles just like we do. Now, if we're smart enough, we figure out that we can apply what he's learned to our lives in the process. It's a win-win scenario. Tonight he talked about criticism. It was AWESOME.

Tuesday night at our Financial Peace class I gave Brother Joe the "W" letter I talked about in my last post along with a print-out of that post. In trying to figure out how to "present" it to him I decided I'd paint on one of my brown paper 50 cent gift bags I got at HL. I think it turned out very well and only took me about 40 minutes to paint. I gave it to him before class and he thanked me and said he'd put it in his office and take a look when he wasn't so rushed. As we were leaving tonight he thanked me and told me that he cried as he read my post. He said he put the "W" near the lamp in his office. He seemed to really like it and I believe he understood that it was TRULY from MY HEART.

Well, I guess I've typed enough for tonight. I'm looking forward to having Stephanie and Brian home again. They will be traveling home from the funeral in Ohio tomorrow.

Blessings ~ Kim