I'm not sure why, but after a weekend full of tag (also insert "yard", "garage" and "junk") sale activities and preaching, we decided to switch the office and the school room yesterday.Yesterday, it rained a rain that would make any rain forrest proud, which was an amazing blessing, because it could have rained just as easily and heavily this weekend, but alas, in God's sovereignty, it held off until yesterday. Rearranging always means finding things that you knew were there, but you didn't know you had.
I found cords to cameras and allen wrenches that went to some item from Ikea, but the most significant thing that I found and took a little time to read were my journals. My journals have sat on my bookshelf for nearly 3 years now and I haven't touched them, but as I moved a box of books today I came across one of my journals that I forgot I had. I began writing in it January 28, 2008. I finished this particular journal somewhere around February, of 2009. The last dated journal entry was January 18, 2009. However, there are many pages of full of streams of consciousness, notes from meetings or sermon preparation work after that last dated entry.
What made this particular journal so interesting is that it chronicles the time I spent after leaving Grove Avenue Baptist Church, in Richmond, VA and went through our arrival and start here in Massachusetts. If you were to compare this time in my life to the making of a cup of coffee, this would be the time where you just finished grinding the coffee beans and you are putting the grounds into the filter. It was a raw time, but a time that truly was on the cusp of seeing God brew something good.
As I look at this journal and compare it to other earlier journals, there is a distinct difference in what I am writing. The journals before this one is full of a sing-song dirge of self loathing and self hatred. I was constantly feeling sorry for myself or crucifying myself for various situations, feelings and sins. This journal was different though. For the first time, may ever in my life, I realized I needed to repent and that the work of the cross was sufficient for forgiveness and restoration.
I was broken from the "failure" of another ministry and church not succeeding. I was angry at a lot of people, myself included. But what God did was take my broken grounds and pour His Spirit through me as I repented and submitted to Him and He made something good.
He is still making something good.
Fully caffeinated and resting in His Grace,
Ryan
