My heart and hands remain full and I ask God daily to let me trust Him more and follow Him more closely.
God has restored and healed my heart in ways that I never knew were broken.
One of the things He has used that I hadn't suspected He would is music.
I've officially been in guitar lessons for over a year. I've forced myself to go to class and also had weeks of taking breaks. Last night I was spazzing out and accidentally hit my teacher with my guitar (we were sharing a music stand). It was embarrassing. He was fine and only worried about my guitar (typical musician lol).
That's proximity for you. When I spazz out, you may very well get hit with a guitar.
Over the last year, my views on the church have shifted very dramatically. It has been over a year since I've served in any ministry which has been so amazing for my soul as I cultivate a heart like Mary's that is glad and whole while remaining before Jesus alone..It's been longer than a year since I felt at home in God's house or with God's people. It's been a good while since I was intentionally in community - purposing to be loving other people regardless of their "worth" and being loved by them when I know very well that I have none to boast of. Not to mention, potentially hurting other people or being hurt by them.
I've had my guard up. I've feared the repeating of any history of any part of my life thus far. I've feared rejection and abandonment and pain so much that I preferred isolation and endeavored to let everything else fall aside. That worked for a while and was very good for me even. To re prioritize, to let God establish my heart and renew it. It isn't any more. I need people and I need the church.
I went to a birthday party for strangers the other day. I love birthdays, but I barely like parties for people I know. So it was a stretch for me to say "I'd love to go to your friends birthday party with you that I wasn't invited to where I won't know anyone and all my awkwardness and insecurities will be all over my face but I can't wait to hang out with you and a house full of strangers", maybe that phrasing isn't a stretch actually, but I didn't say that exactly. I think I just said " yes, I want to hang out with you wherever you are going". But the first one was what I was feeling.
On the way there I talked about how the next day was my good friend's going away party. We joked how partied out I was gonna be and I started in to explain that it would be different if they were "my people" not "your people". He told me, so gently and so sternly "they aren't just my people. They are God's people and you're going to spend all of eternity worshipping alongside them" so basically "Malia, get over it" but so much sweeter and full of the gospel.
I had never imagined a birthday party in that context, but boy have I missed that context. People to belong with and worship alongside. People I have a future in eternity with worshipping our Lord. People who want to see others saved. People that are humans with flaws like me that are ready to just take me as I am and pursue Christ alongside me, even if I do spazz out a lot.
The intentional community of being in a church isn't so you don't have to hang out with sinners or so you can be super comfortable belonging to each other and you finally don't have to muster up any more friendliness toward strangers because you are set in the friend department.
It is more like a symphony. After 13 months of being barely proficient at the guitar, I have come to realize to a greater degree each week, how amazing it is that music is ever pretty at all. Seriously though, you should hear me try to finger pick a song, or play a Bm. It is a struggle and it usually is just noise. I finally played a series of pretty F chords in class the other night, but while being out of time and so it still sounded like noise.
It especially sounded like noise when my teacher played the baseline and had me take the melody. Then all my errors and insufficiency were VERY apparently off instead of mostly proficient.
Intentional community is like that. When we live our life and pursuit of the gospel alongside other people it's really easy to see how off beat we are and sometimes tempting to be discouraged by the noise we make rather than the music we play.
But when we persevere, it is beautiful. I think of the San Diego symphony which I've grown to love and appreciate so much in the last year. I think of how long it's taking me to play the guitar and how far better skilled each musician is. I think how insane it must be to be playing a French horn in such close proximity to a clarinet and harp and xylophone. How insane is it that they are so skilled that each musician can play any piece at all? Let alone alongside other musicians (of all people). But it's beauty! There aren't many sounds more beautiful than all of those musicians and instruments orchestrated in time by the conductor.
And so it is with the church. Its insane that SINNERS can live a redeemed life at all- like even for a minute for us to not be overtaken by sin or swell up with pride or forget that we are sinners who need the gospel- that's a feat.
To see sinners living alongside one another, sharing their lives, pursuing the gospel and intentionally bringing in other sinners-- that's more beautiful than any symphony I've ever heard. Playing in a symphony must be hard, living in community certainly is. But it sure is beautiful.
I am so thankful that God orchestrates our lives to have any purpose, let alone be used for His glory and the exaltation of the gospel.
He knows the beginning from the end. He knows exactly how switching from a G/B to an F chord will sound and He knows exactly where my fingers will need to move and how long it will take me to get it. And when He chooses to write those chords into His song, He does it with my good in mind. Even if it feels like I'll never get it and I melt down a few times trying to understand why and how. He's working on a beautiful piece, He's working to graft me into the symphony of the church and glorify Himself through it all.
I am so thankful. I am so undeserving of a beautiful community to live out life. I'm so not good enough to bear His image and reflect Him to others. I am humbled by the fact that proximity may hurt and may require more than I am comfortable with, but that God has called me to it. And I am thankful that He redeems and restores and won't write me off or give up on me.
He is so good and gracious and great and glorious. And He knows. I take great comfort know that HE KNOWS. He knows how all this will turn out, He knows what He will ask of me and where I'll be in two years and He knows my heart at this very moment and He still loves me.