Hello, Susan..it's me, God.

One of the only downsides to my job is that I am required to work every other weekend. Working on the weekends isn't ideal for many reasons. One of which is missing church half of the month. Now I know that I could make myself stay up and go to church even though I have been up all night, but it rarely happens. This makes it easy to get out of the habit of being a regular church attender. With all my faith related angst lately, I have decided to make church attendance on my non-working weekends mandatory. So, last Sunday, I got up, got the girls and myself ready, texted Jeff, who was at hockey with Matthew,  something along the lines of.."WE ARE GOING TO CHURCH.NO DISCUSSION." and we were off.  We got the kids settled into their respective classes, found our seats in the back, because that's where we like it and listened to the Pastor deliver his message. Nothing could have prepared me for the conviction and simultaneous closeness to God I felt. The Pastor spoke about Menessah, a man who was in all ways blessed with a great life and being raised by parents who wanted him to love and serve the Lord. Unfortunately, Menessah had horridly different plans and lived a life that was anything that was pleasing to the Lord. In fact, he was about as wretched as they come. I sat in my seat listening, and I will admit, that my mind may have wandered to the spaces of, "What are we going to have for lunch?" " What do we have going on this week?" etc. I started to feel guilty and then the Pastor talked about how it's easy to ignore warning signs in our own life. He spoke of examples and here's where it got eery. One of the examples was spot on to bad decisions I have made. I distinctly felt God whispering, "You. You are here today to hear this. Hear me." I literally got chills. It continues to amaze me how God never forsakes me. Even in the midst of me forsaking Him. I felt so unworthy but at the same time I also felt that God was saying, come back to the ways you know will lead you to me. I felt hopeful for the first time in months that all was not lost when it came to my faith. Since Sunday, I have made baby steps into making my everyday world filled with steps that bring me closer to God. Having a time to read devotional, praying for my needs, my husband, my kids, my world. Choosing God. How lucky I feel to serve a God that continues to pursue me. Actually, it's not luck at all. Grace, Amazing Grace, that's what it is.