I can measure how "busy" my life is by how long I leave my blog alone. Given that the last time I actually wrote anything here was last October, and that it is almost October again, I must of had a crazy busy year! Its been a good, full, hard one; I'm still processing a lot of it. I might post some of those lessons later, for additional comment. But first, here's a seasonal update for those of you who have been asking how I've been for months now.
In September, I started attending a new Underground small group called SLICK (Single Ladies In Christ's Kingdom) led by my good friend Shari Carew. She had a very strong call on her heart that God wanted to reach out to the single ladies in our age group and work healing and growth in our lives. She didn't think she was the leader type, but thanks to her willingness to obey we started meeting on Thursday nights. I had the opportunity to offer my apartment as our meeting place and I was unbelievably grateful to do so. See, even though I had been a regular attender of Cornerstone and a faithful servant in Underground for months, I still felt like I didn't really KNOW anyone well, or that they knew me. Part of that was due to the fact that I hadn't had any of my church friends over to my place for anything. My apartment is rather small for parties and such, but its perfect for small group. Once these women started visiting my home and saying how much they enjoyed being in my "space", I really began to feel like I was more than just "church friends" with people, and that I now had Christian sisters I could walk with in my life. That was the first healing I experienced as a result of SLICK - God used those first meetings in my home to deliver the final blow to the isolation I'd struggled with since my fight with depression began in 2005.
Also in September, our new worship pastor and choir director Jason Rose started to shape the choir into an actual consistent, contributing entity in worship and creative ministry. Can I tell you just how much I've appreciated that this year? When I first came to Cornerstone, we had a small choir for occasional music and then later a sort of "worship chorus". Unfortunately both of those groups kind of lost steam and petered out at time went on, primarily due to a lack of leadership. Since music is one of the ways I connect with a community, I was really feeling the loss of a "place" to fit in the church. Now, however, there was a place to serve in music with community, consistent expectations, and a vision for the future. I love that. Choir has become one of my anchors of connection to the church. Our first major project was to introduce a choral element to our production of "The Christmas Window". I do enjoy a challenge. ^_^
In Underground, I was asked during the summer to take over as leader for the worship band in place of my friend Mike, who got married in June. My guitar skills aren't that great but I had led worship before in college, so I decided to say yes. We really started to gel in September as each of us adjusted to a new practice schedule, new music, and regular team devotionals under Pastor David's guidance. It took a couple of tries before we figured out how to "get out the way of the Spirit", as the saying goes. But it is really true that when you obey and do what the Lord asks you to do, no matter how full of holes your service is, He shows up in amazing ways.
At work we adjusted to the loss of a few of our undergrads to graduation, and the addition of some new people to cover the work. Also my boss informed us that he would be taking a year off for sabbatical and spending it mostly in Europe doing fieldwork in the cave systems of Croatia, so we started working on the details needed for that to happen. The idea behind the trip came out of some data we had been collecting on the pathway L-tyrosine takes to produce melanin in the body, and the reasons why that pathway doesn't work in our blind cavefish. (One of these days I'll be able to talk about this project in detail on the 'net. Its really very cool.)
And that was September for me.
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