Church was full to the seams today.......

Today was a great day at Church. The girls and I have been putting up 40 chairs since we started setting up the Church on Saturdays.  They had only set up 32 but from the first we have always set 40 because if you set them up the people will come.  Well today we had 39 people at Church, and if Mokie had not gotten called into work 15 minutes before time to leave to Church we would have had 4 more so we would have had 43, how wondrous that would have been but 39 was glorious as it was.  I do love when the Lord brings his work to fruition and he has only just begun to work in our Church so it will be a wonder to watch where it goes over the years to come .  I think more important than the number in and of itself is the fact that all of us are truly like an extended family and that is what God intends a Church to be.  I think the only down side to the happiness of our growing Church is the ones that have gone away from the Church, I do so miss their embraces and input into the soul of our Church.  They are gone from us, but not forgotten, and maybe someday they will again come or maybe just visit us to see if the things that made them leave are just trials to over come on they way to eternity. I think that the trials in my life are some of my most favorite memories when I look back across my life.  They are where God made the most progress on me.

Poppie and I still struggle with our dilemma, Preacher told the girls we were going to do something today and told them what he thought we were going to do. First of all we hadn't decided to do what he wants and had nearly decided to not do what he wants, as I have said, secondly since we hadn't decided we hadn't included the Ladies as yet in the conversation.  It does now put more pressure on us.  We now have to include the Ladies in the conversation and tell them what we believe and why, and what the Preacher believes and why. We again have thought maybe that we should do it because we don't want to be a stumbling block to others, and maybe even to the Preacher.  We also hover on why compromise is not the answer, and today the Preacher preaches on holding on to your beliefs, so maybe that is the Lord saying we should just not do what the Preacher wants and hold our ground.  We had gone to Church this morning thinking today we will do it this evening, so their is not a huge audience at Church, and this morning would have been an unduly large audience for our Church.  I know I don't make sense but then trials never, or rarely, do when we are in the middle of them.  I often wonder if persecution for Christ sake can be something that to no one else makes five minutes of difference but to Poppie and I it is tantamount to betraying a strong held belief.  Is anything you believe to the bottom of your soul of insignificance even if to other its seem trivial?  I think in the end I don't know the answer and know that giving in is not a sin to most people, or for that matter to God, but why is my soul at such odds?  Why is something so little such a trial, and will I look back at this as overcoming a trial, given in and not standing up for the Lord or just something that happened along the way.  I don't really know, but I do know it isn't as nothing to my soul as the Preacher believes, and he really does believe he is doing right by "offending" us into doing this.  He thinks offending us is his job, I think offending people is something God doesn't want us to do and considers it a sin. There again we disagree in our beliefs but then I think God made us individuals with free will and wants us to have differences in some of our beliefs. He wants an individually relationship with each of us.    I do so miss Belle, she would be so good at helping me with this trial. Poppie does the best he can, but he is really of the same mind as me so sounding off of him is like sound off of to myself......  

1. Alas! and did my Savior bleed, 
and did my Sovereign die! 
Would he devote that sacred head 
for sinners such as I? 

2. Was it for crimes that I have done, 
he groaned upon the tree? 
Amazing pity! Grace unknown! 
And love beyond degree! 

3. Well might the sun in darkness hide, 
and shut its glories in, 
when God, the mighty maker, died 
for his own creature's sin. 

4. Thus might I hide my blushing face 
while his dear cross appears; 
dissolve my heart in thankfulness, 
and melt mine eyes to tears. 

5. But drops of tears can ne'er repay 
the debt of love I owe. 
Here, Lord, I give myself away; 
'tis all that I can do.                                                        What a wondrous Savior we have... tomorrow