You make all things work together for my good.
and if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? [. . .] our God is healer, awesome in power . . .
I hear ignition in the words off her tongue. I see the light in her eyes.
This IS the girl I knew last year, but the girl has grown. I am seeing the change, seeing the love. And I am blessed, amazed, astounded at the work that God is doing in this girl.
She’s sixteen, and has the beautiful trusting mind and relentless love of a five-year-old. A glowing smile, and a hug every time we see each other. And the above are a few of the choice lyrics that overflowed from her heart tonight during worship.
Last year she came but rarely engaged. Worship was too crazy, too overwhelming for her, and on the bigger, busier nights, she’d often choose to stay home. This year, I can’t even piece together what changed in her, except that God is doing amazing things through music in this girl. She runs in every single week, finds me, gives me a hug and then holds onto my shoulders, jumps up and down and says “Kerri! Are we doing worship tonight?!” And I am so, so happy every time that I get the opportunity to say “YES!” And then she asks me repeatedly “How long until worship?”
The character of God is changing the character of this girl. I love that when I least expect it, He opens my eyes through her in such a way that only a big, big, BIG God can do.
I am blessed.
I am blessed by her presence, her heart, her love, her perspective. Her perception. Seriously, she caught me tonight, figured out I was tired, and then after worship told me I needed to go home and go to bed.
I am blessed that through some path only an amazing God has created that our paths crossed, and I’m able to be a part of her world–I do one-on-one respite support for her at our youth events on Friday nights. It’s something I never perceived happening when I signed up to be a youth leader, but it was definitely not an accident. And it’s an amazing learning experience, not only in working with people with disabilities, but in life.
She opens my eyes every single time.
She teaches me how to trust. How to engage when the moment is right for not everyone, but for me . . . as she does. She teaches me how to open myself up to others . . . not for them to see more of me, but for me to see more of them.
She reminds me time and time again that LOVE is LOUDER than circumstance.
Nice to read something about the power and importance of God when we are about to enter a mad crazy pagan festival of a weekend!
((I’m not a big fan of Hallowe’en-can you tell?!))
xx
Every so often I really find myself moved to stand back and look at the amazing beauty of the things that have been created around me, and I’m in awe, you know? And then these sorts of posts spill out of me and I feel awesome and blessed about it. And just LOVE it.
As for the other point, I think Halloween is just for fun. At the place it’s reached in current cultural context, it’s not meant to be a threat to anybody as it was likely perceived historically [at least I don’t see it that way, others may beg to differ]. I totally enjoy the whole free candy and adorably dressed up children thing. :]