Transforming

This past Sunday I had an opportunity to say a few words in front of my church. Scary! There are about 700 or so folks who were there as we were having a joint congregational meeting. My task, should I have chosen to accept, which I did, was to talk about transformation: where has God transformed something or where is he in the process of transforming. I was only given 2-3 minutes to talk, which is nothing. In preparing to talk I was instantly nervous and wondered why I had agreed to such a foolish idea, especially as the first and most obvious thing that came to mind was RA. So I tried to think of other things to talk about…now I know there are other areas where transformation is happening, but my mind was stuck on RA..I couldn’t think of anything else. So I gave it a few days and talked it over a little with friends and then Friday launched into looking into my heart.

I found that I was terrified of standing up and letting people know I am screwed up, not just physically, but emotionally. I was terrified that people would look at me differently, or forever see me as a different person. But another part of me kicked in…I have no idea why the Lord has given me this disease, what if it is to share with other people so that they too might see something. Maybe it isn’t for that at all, I will never know. But I decided to trust the fact that it was the only thing that kept coming to mind when I tried to think about talking and trust that the Lord would let me know if I was going down the wrong path.

The morning of I was nervous, but as soon as I stepped into Rockettown, I felt peaceful. My church is a safe place; it is a place that welcomes screwed up people to be honest and to step into exploring the places the Lord is leading. I have seen many people stand up front and admit weakness, failure, messiness.

So I did it; I spoke briefly on my disease and how I have seen the overwhelming love of my father as I walk through this. I am not sure the exact words…they ended up being different than what I had written out and gone over in my head a few dozen times. That in and of itself is interesting..that even some of the things I thought I might say didn’t even get mentioned. And so far I have felt good about bearing my weakness in not trusting love, in doubting, and in needing those around me to remind me.

And in the process I have come out overwhelmingly thankful for so many things and people and events in my life. Some of the things I was frustrated with last week seem like no big deal (right now, atleast, give me another week and I am sure I will have forgotten) now because I am very aware of how thankful I am for so many things.