Has enough time passed?

We’ve floated now for almost a year, fading into the background as nameless, faceless people. Extremely easy to do in the church we chose. We’ve been pew sitters, church skippers, generally uninvolved bums. Healing…we needed the time to heal. But now, faced with another year of waiting, it’s unavoidable: we can’t possibly sit around any longer. Both of us feel the restlessness. I especially know now, more than ever before, what a worthless waste of time church is if you’re not involved in it in any other way than Sunday morning services. Great for taking some time to heal after you’ve been stabbed in the back, but other than that, a complete waste of time.

Has enough time passed? I still feel the twinges of scars pulled every once in awhile. A song played at an inopportune time. A face in a crowd. I guess that’s why they call them scars. Well, honestly, the only thing stopping me now is fear. These people around me, the ebb and flow every week, what secrets do they hold beneath their masks? What betrayals? Even so - I cannot take it any longer. If I am forced to sit pointlessly on a chair every Sunday with no more involvement than a brainless rock, I shall give up going to church all together. I need to be involved.

I am diving in. We have applied to work in the youth ministry. Perhaps this feeling is more so me than Calvin, but I am a bit scared. He is chomping at the bit to get back into ministry; I am a bit more hesitant. But we learn through everything; all things are for a purpose. Perhaps this additional year is for more than I had thought. Oddly enough, though you might think I have lost confidence, in some ways, the opposite has happened. If nothing else, I am anxious to be who I am, at last. If we’re going to jump in, we’re going to jump in with both feet. I am done with the facades. I am who I am, I believe what I believe. If they will reject me, it will be me. Somehow that is comforting. My God knows me; they will know me as well. I will give them the chance.

It is odd; from the moment we turned in our applications, or perhaps even the moment we decided to become back involved in church ministry, suddenly it went from the church I went to, to my church. Good and bad, it is my church now. And since I realized that, every Sunday as I sit, or stand, I look around and feel an odd bittersweet love for these nameless people. Far too many to know every one. But they are all people. All people with their own struggles, hopes, dreams, needs. My church family, take it or leave it - it’s all I have. It’s bittersweet because I know that genuine community will happen with very few of them, sadly, even those I come into close contact with. The church is…*sigh* has forgotten what it is. But, I’d best make the most of my time here. I cannot ignore those whom God has given me to minister to, nor be so arrogant as to think that none of them can minister to me. Will I ever find the community my nephesh seeks? That yet remains to be answered.

It’ll be an interesting church year.