Blessed are.

I was just reading my daily reading in the Bible, and this passage came into my mind, which had nothing to do with what I was reading in Ezekiel. I really felt like I should put this on the blog, with no idea quite why.

These are some of Jesus' first teachings:
"'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.'"

(Matthew 5:3-10)

How amazing are Your ways.

Whoa. Blogging twice in here in one weekend - can you all handle it? (I know I still have questions to respond to as well. Hopefully I can get to at least one of those today.)

I wrote in my last post how God has really been working in my life in terms of finances. It really has taken a lot of faith to begin to hand them over to Him in the past few weeks, when money is tighter than it's ever been in my life, but obviously, MY way in this isn't working - I need something supernatural to happen. The housing market is down 22% from this time last year, during what is already the slowest time of year to sell a house. I have no idea how to make ends meet in however long it will take to sell this house, much less to add in a tithe. But I do believe that God will be faithful to me when I trust in Him.

Last night, I reflected on the message about God's confirmation that I heard yesterday. Funny to have that message "confirmed" today.

Since money is so tight, I've been seeking out extra work. I accepted an evening job with Sylvan Learning Center (ooh la la) that begins next week, and I'll be working most Saturdays for the next month at the ropes course. Last week, Hector and I were driving by a local church, and I almost made him drive off the road when I gasped after reading the sign: "Church pianist needed."

I memorized the phone number and called as soon as I got reception. I didn't hear anything from them, and when I drove by the next day, the sign had changed. I've played for churches for years, so it's familiar territory for me.

On Thursday night, I got a voicemail from the pastor; on Friday, we spoke and set up a meeting for today after church.

Yesterday, in praying about everything that was going on in my faith, I suddenly realized that I was about to leave the church that I love and the worship team that I play with once a month to go to a brand new church, just to make an extra buck - and I hadn't even prayed about it. Church is so important in the life of a believer - it's where we literally get fed, where we get the inspiration and conviction to continue living a Christian life. It's where we are challenged, edified and sharpened {;-)}. This church is a tiny little country church - much different from the growing "city" church I currently attend.

So, this morning, my worship team was playing in church. I was pretty excited about it but also cognizant that this could very well be my last Sunday playing with them. I let the leader know, and he was pretty sad about it (truth be told, so was I, but I couldn't dwell on it). We had some down time before the service, so I opened up my Bible, intending to read a Psalm. Instead, my Bible fell on this:

"'Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you...'

"Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please. And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

"For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.'" (Isaiah 55, selected verses)

I can't even tell you how that spoke to me - especially "why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?" It was one of those times where you open to the precise verse that you need.

And then my pastor gave a message about tithing. I typically hate it when churches preach about money, but this time, I was less hateful toward that message. It may just be that I admire and my pastor perhaps more than I've respected any others, but I really sensed that he was giving the message less for the church's gain than he was out of a desire to see God's best in our lives... because I really do believe that God blesses our finances when we honor Him in that way. My pastor shared from Malachi 3:10 (among other verses): "'Bring all of the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,' says the Lord of hosts, 'If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.'"

There was my confirmation about how God was already speaking to me about being willing to tithe to Him, to trust that there will be a way in this when the numbers don't lie and there seems to be no way.

Then an interesting thing happened. I was playing the first chords of our final song which we play as the congregation exits the church, and my pastor approached the stage. I continued playing - A, D, F#, E - as I leaned over to hear him.

"I just want to tell you," he said in his soft drawl, "how glad I am to see you up here. It's just great to see. I was just thinking about how - with everything you've been through - how good it is to see you doing so well and to have you participating."

That certainly didn't seem to be confirmation to leave the worship team or to seek a new church. What was up with that timing? A friend was waiting for me as I got off the stage; she asked how things were going, and I told her about the pending interview. "Let's pray," she said, guiding me over to a row of seats where she put the situation before God.

Leaving the church, I began to feel like this new church thing just wasn't going to happen, but I continued praying about it as I drove there (running quite late, like usual).

Then I realized that maybe God wanted to use me in a greater way than just as a church pianist at the new church. Maybe he wanted someone young there, to infuse it with life and excitement for God. After all, I ended up being a youth and assistant pastor at the last church where I started just as a pianist. Who knew what I could do here?

I pulled into the parking lot, and there were people waiting for me. "Are you the new pianist?" they asked.

"Um, I'm not really sure," I said, wondering if I was coming for an interview or for training.

"Oh, God bless you," said the woman, enveloping me in a hug. "We've been praying for you."

The man told me how he'd just gotten saved at age 55 and had since written 60 gospel songs without a lick of traditional training. I went in to the church, and there were seven or eight people waiting for me with smiles on their faces.

"You must be Heather!" one said.

We sat down to chat, and I was firmly confused about what God was trying to do here. In the past 24 hours, I'd been certain I would accept this position to get some extra money; I'd been sure that I should turn it down and continue going to my church where I feel so drawn; I thought maybe I should pursue this because God wanted to use me.

In other words, I had no idea.

So we chatted, and we played some songs, and I shared what I was looking for in a church, and they shared what they were looking for in a pianist. They had already interviewed one person for the position, and I could be completely off base, but when I left, I felt as if they were going to pick me. I told them that I wanted to attend a service before I made a decision, and Hector would like to come with me since we'd really like to find a church to attend together (which is quite a conundrum since I think we look for different things in a church). I told them that since I'd be there next Sunday, that I'd be more than willing to play for the service (paid or not paid, I didn't care). The pastor called me a couple of hours later and asked me to do just that.

And I still have no idea.

But it will be good to seek God in prayer. Hector and I had one other local church that we wanted to try, so we'll go to their Wednesday night service and see how that feels to help me make my decision on Sunday. I am completely fascinated at how God is working, though, and I'm curious to see what doors might open or close. I'll keep you posted, and if you think of it, pray for me.

Moments.

Heh. Just when you thought I'd totally abandoned this blog...

God has really been working in my life lately, in ways that I haven't quite known how to put into words. I don't want to say that He's testing my faith, per se, but maybe He's trying to reveal to me what my faith *really* looks like.

We all know that I was an active believer for many years and stepped away from my faith to marry D. You know what I regret most about that? Marrying D wasn't the worst part of it; instead, I feel like I can never regain the relationship I once had with God. It's not that I think God doesn't love me, or that He won't be involved in my life. But there was a time when I trusted Him as my everything - unconditionally - and I trusted Christians just as much.

It's like any relationship that was severed for a while - there seems to always be a scar there afterwards.

A few things have happened recently that I really want to share.

I went to Lar's grandmother's funeral on Tuesday. Lar handled it well. I, however, was a mess... cried through the whole freakin' thing. That was an interesting day anyway... the four hours of driving alone really gave me a lot of time to reflect on things, and I found myself really missing D's mother, to the point where I was thinking about writing her a letter.

Anyway, at the funeral, everyone who got up to spoke said the same thing - she was a woman of unwavering faith. She fought the good fight. She kept the faith. She went the distance. (See 2 Timothy, chapter 4.)

And how sad it made me that that couldn't be said about me. I *want* to have unwavering faith. I want that to be the stronghold in my life. I want to be so ethical that I charge sales tax at my stand at the flea market and surrender that money to the government.

Lately, I've really had it on my heart to tithe (giving 10% of your income to God, through an offering at a church). If you read my other blog, you know that money is terribly tight for me these days, and it's been very hard for me to give up control in this area of my life to God, particularly when I'm so panicked. But I want to trust that God will honor my desire to serve Him in this way and will not allow me to fall into financial destruction as a result.

Through this, I am realizing how little I actually do trust God, and that, too, makes me sad. When I sat down and calculated my monthly expenses and included the tithe, I found that I'll end up spending more than I make, and that wasn't even counting funds for food. Yet I know the Bible says, "Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible'" (Matthew 19:26).

I don't want my God to be money any longer. I don't want to be ruled by the worry and the panic. And I want this to extend to other areas of my life. I want to trust God with all things, to acknowledge that He truly is the Lord of my life, that I trust Him to do things that are superhuman, that I don't hold Him to the limits of what is humanly possible in the ways I think about Him and what He can do.

I worked at the rock climbing wall/ropes course today, and we had a young adults group from the Brooklyn Tabernacle. (You may have heard of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir; they've won a couple of Grammys.) They were the most amazing group. It's no secret that I've struggled with Christians lately; experiences in mypast have left me distrustful, and even hateful at times, toward them. I hate to be this way; really, I do. Genuine, believing, praying Christians are some of the most delightful people ever. When I see a person with really deep laugh lines on their face, I'm almost certain to find that they're believers.

This group just really touched me and blessed me with their genuine kindness, their remarkable humor (I laughed all day), their helpfulness, their welcoming nature - I joined them for their afternoon service, and Hector and I even came back this evening for the evening service, and they all introduced themselves and were thrilled to have us, their unhidden desire to know God more. And it was fabulous to be around Christians my own age, in a place where I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I wasn't being judged.

At the evening service, they broke the men and women into separate groups. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't get to spend time with Hector in this way, but I knew he'd be blessed by the group, too. The female staff leader, Sue, talked about looking for marriage. One of the things she said really stuck out to me: if it is God's will for you to marry the person that you're dating, He will send you confirmation of that. If everyone in your life is saying that you shouldn't be with X, or that they don't like X, you're probably going against God's will. She talked about how her father predicted she'd marry her husband before they even began dating, how at a prayer meeting, Brian brought up the same Bible verse that she'd journaled about earlier that morning.

So (of course), I started thinking: Have Hector and I been confirmed by those who love us? I couldn't really think of anything, but his parents' aversion to our relationship came to mind. And I know it's not that they don't like me or that they think I'm not good for Hector or anything like that - it's just an issue with my divorce. Anyway, when I was driving into town later that night, I started praying about it, asking God for confirmation.

When I met up with Hector, he said, "I forgot to tell you about the conversation with my mom that I had today. She was listening to a Spanish worship song, and I started singing along. She asked if I'd been practicing my Spanish, so I said, 'Why? Did you meet the perfect Spanish girl for me?' My mom didn't pause in saying, 'No, you've already met the perfect girl, and her name is Heather.'"

It completely blew me away that on the day that I would specifically be asking for this confirmation, particularly in regards to his parents, that it would come.

Sue (the leader) also asked how many of us have the same struggles that we've had for years in terms of our faith. As she spoke about that, it dawned on me how true that had been. The same things that pull me away from my faith now are the same things that pulled me away when I started dating D.... and if I'm not prayerfully seeking God's help to overcome them, I will end up right where I was when I was making the biggest mistakes of my life.

Sue said, "Do you feel like God's left you or has abandoned you? He died on the cross for you. Why would He do all of that and then abandon you now?"

And all day, I heard the verse that I've heard so many times throughout my life. I first heard this when a junior high school science teacher signed my yearbook "Jere 29:11." His name is Jeremiah, but he went by Jere. I adored that teacher. Anyway, the verse says: "I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not destroy you, plans to bring about the future you hope for."

It is a verse that has *always* spoken to me, that has never become overly familiar to the point where I don't "hear" is anymore. It is, in some ways, my life verse. And now, when I find myself in a place in life that I didn't necessarily want to be, it is a poignant reminder that God's work in me is not finished. The tears that I cry are not unnoticed. "And Your thoughts to us," says Psalm 40, "cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered."

So. I am not sure how to end this, if there is more that should be said, or if this is anything more than ramblings to anyone else. But I do feel that I'm at yet another turning point in my faith where I have opportunity to make a clear choice that shows where my heart truly lies. I think maybe I'm going in the right direction this time.