This Post...

… has been in the making for a very long time.

I Kings 19:9-15

“And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”  The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”  Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.  Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”  The Lord said to him, “Go back the way you came…” (NIV, 1984).

Sometimes I feel like Elijah.  For the past several years, “Go back the way you came” has been rolling around in my head.  Not that I felt that God was necessarily instructing me to literally “go back” (and stay there, wherever “back” is), but the “way you came” part has been quite tangible.  And so, there has been this process of walking back through many, many scenes of my life.  I recently came across a quote in Donald Miller’s book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years .  It said, “She knows who she is. She just forgot for a little while.”  Yes.  Yes, this is me.

After a really long searching process, I finally threw up my (figurative) hands and said, “OK…  What am I missing?”  And then, something really unexpected happened.  You see, like Elijah, I had re-visited the wind… and the earthquake… and the fire.  Surely those were the events that made me who I am, right?  It’s always the crisis moments that form and shape us, isn’t it?  Maybe not so much…

As many of you know, I quizmastered on Saturday at the Lela Close Memorial Tournament and had a wonderful day.  One of the highlights for me was to talk with the team from Brighton Naz, which was the first Nazarene church I ever attended and where I spent my early teen years.  Through a series of events and conversations, the Brighton coach asked us to come to their practice on Sunday afternoon, and so we did.

There are maybe 3-5 people on the entire face of the Earth to whom this picture of the day will have significance.  I am one of them:

I can remember waiting for this box to arrive... new!

My understanding is that it was almost thrown out but then someone recognized what it is...

This resulted in the Brighton team *not* getting a new computerized set...

How bad is it that I'm selfishly glad it happened that way?

Taking a seat on “White 2”, it occurred to me that this was the last piece.  I had walked my spiritual journey all the way back to the gentle whisper. 
 

In addition to new friends and a great opportunity to help them; they helped me, too.  I actually got a complete tour of the many new additions to the building and programs, and I enjoyed sharing a little bit of history as I explained what “used to be here” and how “that used to look like this”.  I am sure I must have seemed a little bit crazy when tears sprung to my eyes in the youth offices, which used to be the teen room.  But it was all good.

Little stuff…  It matters…  Now what?

L.