Out of the Ordinary

It's so refreshing sometimes when something out of the ordinary happens. Last night was one of those times. I woke up from my Sunday afternoon nap (yay! I got one!) to hear the loud rumblings of thunder. I got up but it was very bright and sunny outside but the thunder continued to rumble. Then about 10 minutes later the wind came. Boy, it was blowing hard but it still had some sunshine. We loaded up in the car and headed to church. After being in the car for about 5 minutes it started to drip drop. To the south over the trees the sky was black with lightening bolts flashing. Creation is such a wonderful conversation piece to talk about God with the children, I am very thankful for it. As we neared the bridge you can see this enormous expanse of sky, the north side of the sky was this glorious light with bright white clouds and rays of sunshine beaming down. On the south of the sky it was pitch black with gray clouds and lightening. The horizon was literally cut in half and you could see both of these skies at the same time. Oh for a wide angle lens it was really awesome!



So as we crossed the bridge we crossed into the delouse. As we arrived at church the rain is just pouring down and even if you had had an umbrella (which we didn't) it wouldn't have helped one bit because the wind was blowing the rain where you got wet vertically and horizontally (does that make sense?)! We dashed about 15 ft up onto the front porch where you would think you would be dry but the rain was coming in sideways and the door was still locked! Brother Robert had just arrived before us and was hurrying around unlocking all the doors. So once everyone was inside we were just having a great laugh at each other because everyone was drenched and everyone had lovely wet hairdo's. We were all supposed to sing an extra hymn as we waited for Brother Chris to get back from preaching at the Williston graduation service, well, that didn't happen. Brother Chris arrived after 6:30 but we were all still drying off and drying up the rain that had come inside the stained glass windows. That wind was blowing hard! As we were there I just looked around and laughed to myself because we were just having a wonderful time of fellowship looking like drenched cats cleaning up rain water and thought that there was no place on earth we would all rather be than right there together at church. We were all able to thank God for giving us all safety in the rain and for being able to come together.

Lately we have been reflecting on the fact of just how grateful we should be for our church fellowship. Every time we see Brother Peter at church we are reminded that in many places people cannot meet together for church freely. We take it for granted so often that we have a fellowship and we are allowed to go to that fellowship without persecution three times a week. What a wonderful blessing God has bestowed upon us! Then as we look around and miss Sister Edna now that she has gone home to be with the Lord we are reminded that we don't know how long we have here and that there are those who are too ill to be able to come up to the house of the Lord and it makes it that more precious. I do not exaggerate when I say that every day, at least once, both C & C ask me or tell me when the next time it is to go to church, whether it's Sunday or Wednesday. Charles and I jokingly talked that we can tell what the children's priorities are by what they ask for: where is Daddy/when is he coming home, can we go to Nama's house and when can we go to church! I pray that God will help us keep their hearts tender to those desires always.

So I guess it really wasn't that out of the ordinary but just a refreshing time together with God just giving us a different atmosphere for our ordinary trip to church! :)