Our church

"Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart than on the tongue."

Henry Fielding

This quote that came up in my facebook memories from four years ago feels like an appropriate way to describe the feelings I have now about our church, though it's not quite so simple. Mostly joy at the Lord's provision, but some questions and anxiety as well over different details. I've been meaning to update on here since this blog is my journal of sorts, and it feels like a safe place since hardly anyone knows about it or reads it :-). I know from my own experience I will have times of doubt and fear in the future and few things are more comforting to my fears than remembering how the Lord has provided in the past. "Hitherto has the Lord helped us," which in itself is a good reason to write all this down.
But anyways...... I am feeling so thankful for our church. These past years of not truly having a church were hard for multiple reasons and caused struggle for me in different ways. It was hard to know what to do under the circumstances, though in hindsight we probably should have done something a lot sooner. As a person who is nervous about change, I could probably say that about a lot of things though. 

Recently it has been made very clear to us that the answer to our prayers for a local preaching station was a no, (at least for now, who knows what the Lord has planned for the future, to our eyes even that seems unlikely), that there was a lack of commitment to meeting regularly in our group, and quite simply the fact that our needs were not being met by watching church on tv, and a long distance session (that we were seemingly forgotten by). However in spite of all that it was a scary step to move on and look. Almost a year ago we visited a PRC church thinking since they were a Psalm singing denomination it could maybe fill our need. But after our visit it was clear this was also a no, due to some pretty major differences between us, and a two plus hours drive one way. That in itself was discouraging, that our first attempt was a no. But the Lord is merciful, and eventually we finally pulled ourselves together and went and checked out the local (45 minutes away) OPC church. We were nervous about some differences in convictions,and about some stuff we had heard, but knew we had to try, and we were reminded that the Lord has not left the church, who are we to? That was about 7 weeks ago.

As it turned out some of our fears turned out not to be true. Yes, we do have some disagreements over the regulative principle,and there are some elements of worship we can not participate in, but for the first time in years I am looking forward to church,  I'm finding myself hungry again, instead of coming home feeling discouraged and empty. I can't thank the Lord enough for the gift of that. It is wonderful to be hearing good live sermons, to have my children in church, to sing a Psalm or two every week. I know it's not perfect, that raising our children here will have it's own unique challenges, and we don't know what will happen, or where we will be when our custody days are over. But for now the Lord has given us a pastor who is willing to meet and give us godly counsel, who is teaching us. We're being taught, fed, helped, and encouraged and I thank God so much for that. He is good. These verses from Isaiah 30 have been on my mind and heart these past weeks -

 "And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him. For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem: thou shalt weep no more: he will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry; when he shall hear it, he will answer thee. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left."