Sunday Joys...

Sundays have always been my favorite day of the week. Back in Dallas, Sundays brought together most everything and most everyone that I loved. From being a part of Sunday worship, to seeing all "my girls", to singing in our high school Sunday School class, to those blueberry donut holes from Mustang, to lunch with my whole extended family, and to most likely 2 or 3 Bible Studies in the evenings...my Sundays were filled with things and people and events that brought me great, great joy!

So needless to say, I was very fearful that Sundays up here in St. Louis were going to be the most difficult, and the most lonely days for me. For here, I am going to a church where no one really knows me and I am slowly getting to know people, I am going to a church where I don't work and therefore, don't have that identity following me. Sunday lunches are usually a frozen meal or PB&J from my basement mini-kitchen, and I don't have endless Bible Studies to prepare for and lead that evening. Sundays up here were going to be a whole new ball game. And I was not sure I was going to like it!

But by God's sheer and amazing grace, Sundays up here in St. Louis are once again my absolute favorite day of the week- though they are drastically different. For the past several Sundays, as I have driven home from church... my mind has reflected upon how my heart is just overflowing with joy! God is graciously giving me joy in things and experiences I have never (or not in a very long time) known.

Church is a whole new experience. I can't remember a time when I was a part of church where I wasn't the pastors daughter and wasn't on staff. While these are experiences I loved and would never change, there is a certain freedom, for this season of my life, in going to church and just being a part of the congregation. Just one in the crowd who has come to church for no other reason than to worship, to meet with God, and to be restored. In a place where I am not really known yet and don't yet known everyone, I have found church to be the sweetest refuge where I just get to meet with my Savior. This has been a season of getting caught of up in the worship of Christ and the wonder of the gospel that I have never known.

Sunday afternoons also are a whole new experience. A friend encouraged me early on to truly take this day as a day of rest- something I honestly have never done. While really doing this has often been a struggle, God is teaching me so much about how to not only rest but to rest in him. He is teaching me in real and experiential ways that the commandments he gives us, specifically in regards to the Sabbath, are truly for our good and for our joy! As I got to sit in a coffee shop today without any school work, I could not even attest to the joy that came from the freedom of not having anything glaring to do and the ability to engage what I have been learning all week at a heart and devotional level- to truly have the freedom to seek and rest in him.

Anyways, I probably could go on. But just wanted to thank those of you who have prayed for me- especially on Sundays- knowing that they had the potential to be so hard. God has been overwhelmingly gracious, and my joy is overwhelming to. I am, by his grace, getting to experience a little taste of what the Psalmist describes- "in your presence is fullness of joy." Truly makes me long for the day when our experience will not be the taste, but will be the real thing and we will get to experience deeper, fuller joy than we have ever known. Oh how we long for his return.

Come Lord Jesus Come!