We traveled again for SERVEteam this weekend & went back to Emporia-the place where I spent most of my childhood. It was the first time that I had been back since my parents moved 5 1/2 years ago.
As we got off the interstate and began to drive down the street that lead to the church-memories began to flood back to me and I began to notice how so many things had changed. New shops stood where at one time there had been only fields. Trees were tall that had once been held up by stakes. Swing sets that had once been played on by screaming children now swayed slowly in the breeze.
As I observed all the changes I began to feel sad-very unstable & a little depressed. The feeling only began to worsen when we walked into the church and I saw even more changes. Offices moved, remodeled, and painted. New signs, new water fountains, and new light fixtures replaced what had once been there and with all these changes I began to cry a little.
When we were done practicing I walked out the front doors as I had many times before and looked down to my left towards the home that I had grown up in and saw something that pushed me over the edge-the tree row that Andrew and I had played in and built forts in for so many years was gone. How could people come along and change all these things?! Who did they think they were?!
I went on with the evening feeling a little hurt. It was at that point that Conner and I pulled our 15 passenger van into an all too familiar drive way-Miss Arlene's. This woman became a surrogate grandmother to my brother and I over the years and we spent countless hours, days, nights, and weeks in that home-I would even go as far to say that we did some growing up there.
Arlene wasn't there and so I went in thru the door that I knew how to get into and found the spare key in the same place that it had been forever and we walked in. I smiled as I took a deep breath in and smelled the all too familiar smell of popcorn and laundry detergent that was always prevalent in the front room. As the evening went on and I walked thru the house I began to notice how literally NOTHING had changed-in fact the toys that I played with as a little girl and the dress up clothes that I dressed up in were still there and in the SAME closet. The desks with the pens, paper, old checkbooks, and markers were in the same room in the same spot and the things were in the same drawers. The furniture in the living room was the same and set up in the same way that it had been on the first day that I had walked into this amazing woman's home 18 years ago. My heart began to soften and I began to relax as I realized that even though there were all of these places that had changed and all these rooms and buildings and fields were gone or different-there was one place that I have held special in my heart forever that has not changed at all and that even to this day it was still a safe, unchanging place.
I laid in bed and memories ran thru my mind-the conversations that rang in the halls of the church, the laughter from the home that I grew up in, the conversation that my parents had with my brother and I before we moved-and I began to wonder what the heck God was thinking by taking us from all this that we had found comforting and safe.
Sunday morning's sermon answered my question. God didn't do all this to my family-moving us, new church, Mom's stroke, etc. to anger us and make us bitter-instead He did it to show us how amazing He is, to show us that there were other people who needed us, and to say "Look-when you were hurting because of the unfamiliar-I gave you all these people to love on you. I want you to praise me."
Unceasing praise. Never ending. Even in the tough times.
As we pulled out of town this afternoon-those words rang in my head and I smiled knowing that even though there were so many changes in the past 5 1/2 years there is one place that will never change and that having an attitude and lifestyle of unceasing praise really does help you see all your blessings.
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