Today I would like to share a post I read yesterday. Very poetic, and a truth we need to ever be reminded of often. Although I was raised in church, my life has not always been easy. If not for the love of others, I would not be who I am today. When I found the church I attend now, I was a single mom. No one knew if I was anybody important, that I was raised in church, or if I had never been in church at all. All that I was, was a single young woman with a baby in her arms. I quickly found out that I was the only one who cared about the Scarlet Letter I felt I carried. This church was different.
Six years later, I am married to my daughter’s father, and we are happy, because these people did not care where we came from, but they did care where we were going. I recently was told of a woman who is new in our church. She said her moment of “this is where we are supposed to be” came on baby dedication Sunday. She said there were many single moms up there, and Bishop loved them and blessed these moms for trying to raise them in God’s ways. She was shocked; at her last church you could not dedicate a baby who was from a single parent home. Then I was shocked, and realized how blessed I had been. She went on to say that while she and her husband had never had children out of wedlock, they were both raised in single parent, Christian homes.
Faith Lifts asks “Are you subconsciously deciding who deserves a touch of love from God?” And then listen to the song … it is powerful!
Amen sister. I grew up in the church too and the most effective people are the ones that are willing to be used, not the ones who are perfect. If we, as christians, waited until we reached some unattainable level of perfection to be used by God, nothing would ever get done. He’s uses the willing, not the perfect. That’s the whole point of grace.
Shalom, what a great statement. He uses the willing not the perfect. As my dad would say….now that will preach.
When I read this entry I thought of a time when my oldest son was just a little guy. My husband and I were working with the young adults in our church. We knew a young lady who was struggling with her sexual orientation. She was wonderful lady and loved children dearly. I had tons of babysitters to choose from and even a grandmom close by. But I chose to allow this girl to babysit my child. Why? We wanted to show her the love of Christ in our home and it was a good way to get her there. We got some “talk” in the usual church grapevine for doing this, but we didn’t budge. We accepted her where she was at and God gave us the opportunity to minister to her. Don’t look the other way because someone is “unlovely”. Love the person…hate the sin. So many times we as Christians forget to seperate the person from the sin. God loves them. So should we. I can’t imagine where I would be if I didn’t have some of those “willing” people in my life.