I CAN'T DO THIS!

All week, I couldn’t wait to get to church. Such strength it gives me. The worship/music, the prayers, Milton's sermons especially with their gripping anointing propelled by the things he and I are facing. I felt like David who said, "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of the Lord" (Psalm 122:1). (The preach hit me: if you don't go to church or have dropped out, go find one this week. You never know when you might reach the point where you don't have the strength to go. Get involved. Teach a class. Take a turn in the nursery. Be a greeter or an usher or a parking lot attendant. Why? This will make you a pillar Christian. It will make your faith—and your knowledge of God—grow by leaps and bounds. Preach is over. J)

This morning, the service brought joy to my soul. Tonight was our annual drama/musical, and intertwined with professional-level music, we had Mary and Joseph and the Baby and the shepherds and the angels; and we had Mr. Grench with Broadway-par music backing him as he pranced around the sanctuary; and we had beautiful "Judy Garland" singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas;" and we had Scrooge and his nephew and the street urchins; and we had 9 children from our large, growing refuge group from war-torn Africa who have found our church, most of whom can't speak English, doing a river dance only we called it an African dance. Summing it up, it was fabulous—fun and touching and spiritual, turning our thoughts to Christ and His birth.

I slipped out during Milton's closing prayer as we had agreed and went to the church staff kitchen to wait for Milton to finish his pastoring. I recounted the service that morning and the musical. I thought about the two or three children who could've won $10,000 on America's Funniest Home Videos with their darling stage antics. And I heard the bustle of the crowd, and I envisioned them talking and showing their friendship.

And then I said to myself, You're so weak, you can't even stand up with the congregation to sing the songs. You can't mingle with your beloved parishioners; you have to sit here in isolation because you can't get a cold because you can't get locked into that mask with a cold. You can't go out to eat tonight with those who go after special events and Wednesday nights, for coffee and chatting, because you're so tired you have to go home and get in bed, like you did after church today.

You can't even let your daughter, who lives all the way in Puerto Rico and is staying in town to help me, come to your house tonight to watch the kiddies play a few minutes because they have colds and you can't risk…

I started crying, not the sobbing or wailing I'd done Wednesday. But a great tsunami of sadness hit me with a ferocity, and I kept focusing on the things I can't do. I can't clean my house (something I love to do; I know; I'm nuts). I thought of more things I can't do, like speed reading now, reading is laborious and unpleasant.

I thought about my "big novel" I've had to abandon because I can't write it.

You can't do this; you can't do that; you can't do this; you can't do that..

And then…

AND THEN…

I heard the Spirit of the Lord say to me LOUDLY, "WHO are you, Kristy?" My heart leaped in my chest. And I answered, with great authority, "I'm a daughter of the King, I'm the blessed of the Lord, I'm a highly favored one, I'm a child of God, I'm a blood-washed saint.

These thoughts and more poured through me bigger than the tsunami! The despair left IMMEDIATELY, and in it's place came PEACE!!

I'm at peace! I'm happy.

***

I'm at my computer, and Milton's at his, and I turned to look at him, and he propped his elbow on his desk and held his head in his hands. "This is so unfair," he said. "It's so unfair," and I jumped up and ran to him, and locked my arms around him, around his back, and pulled him close to me, and I started crying, and I told him what I was blogging about, and how these same feelings had hit me just 30 minutes ago in that lonely church staff kitchen where I sat all alone, but I said, "Milton, the Lord gave me a victory! The Lord gave me a peace!" And I could see him now because he turned, and his face was as bright as Florida sunshine, and we kept hugging, and I said, "I'm going to go write this blog post, and then I want to read it to you.

***

This morning, on our way to church, we had a flat tire. He pulled it onto a side street and called dear, faithful, hard-working, church staff member Robert, and within five minutes, two people were there taking us to church. Man, this church is good. And so is God!

Milton told the congregation during his sermon, "When the flat tire occurred, Kristy looked at me, and I looked at her, she looked at me, and I looked at her, and then we burst into laughter and laughed and laughed. He said to the congregation, "Did you hear the joke about the couple who were sitting there, and she cocked an eye at him, and he cocked an eye at her, and they were both sitting there looking cock-eyed at each other, and that is what we were doing."

And the congregation roared.