Truly the light is sweet, Ecclesiastes 11:7
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Welcome to Searching for Sunshine! |
My church does this thing where, instead of calling us volunteers, they call us servers. At first I thought this was weird, it sounded weird, why would I want to serve? We usually equate servant-hood with slavery, and I did not want to be a slave, it sounded unpleasant. But then I realized this, to be a servant of the Lord, is not to be a "slave", it as an opportunity, and an amazing one at that. To be a servant is to be blessed with the ability to help further God's mission, to help bring other people to Christ- no matter what your role. Isn't that the ultimate goal? To help other's experience the joy of Christ, the power of His love? Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me. John 12:26 (NIV) Now, my goal here is not to force you to sign up to serve at your church. (Although you totally should, it's so fulfilling.) I am writing this because I want to tell you the story of my experience as a servant of the Lord through my church. I've been helping out with various special events through my church for about 7 years. Our annual "Plunge" event and the youth worship team being the two biggest. However, it wasn't until this year that I began serving on a weekly basis. My boyfriend (Brandon) works with All Nations Church as the Communications Director, and this has allowed me to serve in various areas. I help with small things, making graphics with bible verses for social media, running a quick errand, storing nearly 300 gingerbread house kits in my car overnight, helping set up for youth nights. On Sunday mornings, and at special events, you'll more than likely find me with my camera, playing the role of the church's photographer. I take pictures, I post to the Instagram story during service, nothing big. But it's something that helps expand the church's reach, and therefore allow more people to know God. For one of Brandon's projects, I got to interview people about their serving role in the church. Through this, I have had the amazing opportunity of getting to know people who I otherwise might not have. I also got to hear about their experiences as servants of the Lord, and I got to see, first-hand, the joy that they experience. This was my main takeaway: while putting yourself out there can be nerve-wracking, the sense of fulfillment and love from God outweighs it a hundred times over. Serving has given me purpose, I have a reason to be at church every week, I can't miss a week because "I didn't get enough sleep", or "had a late night". I am forced out of my comfort zone, and through that I have met amazing people. I have developed skills that will further help me serve God. When it comes to my mental illness, I get anxious and depressed if I am not doing something useful. When I worked, it gave me something to do, it kept me busy enough that I literally did not have time to be anxious, because I was either working, or sleeping. Serving is nothing like that, yeah, it is something to do, but it has purpose. I don't feel as anxious or depressed because He fills me up with His joy. And, I GET TO SPREAD THAT JOY! Serving God has helped me be closer to Him. It's a constant reminder that He is the reason for everything, and that I will always be able to turn to Him. And He has brought joy, hope and light back into my life, after years of darkness.
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Okay, so I know it's been a while since I last wrote, but I have a very good excuse: EXAMS!! I've spent the last couple weeks holed up in my room studying for my exams and trying to get final projects in. It's been a whirlwind, but, I'm finally done! …for the year, and then it all starts over again in January.
Throughout this whole ordeal, I've had some trouble with my mood. Partially due to being eternally exhausted (I slept for 15 hours after my last exam), and partially because of my thoughts. Last exam season I lost all of my friends. Literally. Since grade 12, I had had a really close-knit group of friends. We would have sleepovers all the time, we saw each other every day, they were basically family. Until they weren't. All of a sudden, I noticed that there would be major inconsistencies in their stories. They'd exclude me from conversations, hide things from me, and towards the end, lie directly to my face. I try to be a very forgiving person. We're all human after all. I know that you'll make mistakes, I do too, and I will forgive you for those, I won't hold it against you. But I do not accept lying. To me, lying is not a mistake. With the amount of planning and forethought that is required to keep it secret, it can't be. This all happened around the time of my exams, and it was really hard on me. I mean, I had lost everyone. Or so I thought. What I hadn't yet realized was that, while these friends had been really good to me for about 2 years, they were holding me back. They had encouraged me to settle, I didn't push myself in school, at work, in life in general. I became comfortable with where I was. I had fallen away from God, and I hadn't yet realized. I think God had put those girls in my life for a reason. He knew that I was going to pull away from Him, and that I would need people to support me through that. So He gave me those people, and for the time that I needed them, they were good to me. God knew that I would start to come back to Him eventually, and that when that happened, these girls would hold me back, that I would need new friends, friends that would encourage me to pursue my relationship with God. At the same time that all of this drama was happening with the girls, I started talking to my now-boyfriend, Brandon. He was my rock through this. He supported me when they were hurting me. He invited me back to church, and he introduced me to new friends. People who were also Christian, who understood my struggles, and who would help and encourage me on my spiritual journey. When I was going through a hard time 2 years ago, when I was so lost and hurt that I pulled away from God, He didn’t leave me, or abandon me. He gave me people that He knew would support me, and keep me safe until I was ready to accept Him back into my life. And when I was, He opened the doors so that I could find Brandon, who helped bring me back to church. I thank God everyday for this, for giving me what I needed, even if I didn't know it. I thank Him even though at the time, when I didn't understand, I was angry at Him. And I thank Him now for giving me the friends that I have now. |