I see hurting people.

Ever have those times when you’ve written a post (or three) in your head and you’re positive you’ve already posted it. Well, that’s kind of how I feel about this one. So if you’ve heard this before, give me a lot of grace. This has a little twist.

As some of you may know, we’ve been visiting some different churches and praying about where God would have us to serve. It has been difficult for a few years now that we have not had a church to serve in — people to get to know — friends to make. We were out riding motorcycles back in September and we came across a country church not too far from our house. We visited once around then.

Fast forward to February and we decided to go back to that church (Berry’s Grove). It amazed us that the preacher remembered our faces, and what area we had told him we live, but couldn’t remember our names. It didn’t amaze us that he didn’t remember our names. We really didn’t expect him to remember us at all given we’d visited one Sunday about 5 months before. We enjoyed his sermons and decided to give Sunday School a try.

Duck and I have gone to the Adult 1 Sunday School class the past 3 weeks. This class is taught by the preacher’s wife, Tonya. The first class was out of the quarterly which to tell you the truth, sometimes I don’t like. When I first became a Christian, I didn’t know a lot of the Bible and I soaked up all the information I could. But the next year when it seemed to be going over the same scripture, I was just ready for more. Tonya made it interesting though, so we went back.

The second week, she decided not to use the quarterly and did an impromtu lesson. Well, I don’t know if impromtu is necessarily the right word since she was doing what God led her to do. She talked about our relationship with God and how if that relationship isn’t right — our relationships with others are not going to be right. It gave me a lot to think about last week as I was trying to make sure I get in my quiet time every day.

Yesterday she talked a lot about the relationships with people around us. How we should care for one another — love one another — lift one another up in prayer. We had a full class — more than I’d seen in there ever — and there were some hurting people. Some shared some very specific prayer requests. Tonya made the point that specific prayer requests not only help those who are being prayed for, but us as well when we see the prayers being answered by our awesome God. She encouraged everyone to share specifics if they felt comfortable and a few did. Mercy, sympathy, PMS, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, I cried along with these requests.

I don’t know these people yet. Everytime we visit a church, I look around and all I see are hurting people. Mainly God puts the hurting women on my heart. It hurts me because I want to help — I want to pray — I want to be friends and let God use me to maybe make their day a little brighter. But that all takes time. Time after you join a church. It’s not going to happen immediately. So even if Berry’s Grove is the church God would have us serve in, it’s going to be awhile before we settle in and get to know people — know what to pray for — know how to encourage.

I see hurting women all over the place. I even see them online. Some of them I see online way too much — but that’s another post I’ve written in my head. Yesterday I felt like God was confirming that He wants me to share my stories. He wants to use me to reach others. He wants my voice out there. That scares me a little because the thought of talking in front of people makes me nervous. But God’s given me some messages I think I’m supposed to give to women — whether here or in person.

Even though I didn’t speak up in the class, I’m going to make my prayer request known here. I know many of you will pray for me and I so desperately need all the help I can get — every.single.day. Pray for us to find the church God would have us serve in. Help us to open ourselves up to the new people we’ll meet — to be able to support and love on them, and for them to do the same to us. Give me patience and wisdom to know when to “jump” in and help and when to just listen or let things slide. Pray for God to confirm in me His call — whether to write, speak, or both.

Thank you for stopping by here today and reading all this. If there’s anything I can pray for you about, leave me a comment or send me an email at lisab (at) lisaboyd (dot) com. I may not get to see you in church on Sundays, but God sees both of us and we can pray for each other.