"I was glad when they said unto me,
Let us go into the house of the Lord."
Psalm 122:1
I was a very fortunate child in many ways. Every child should be so blessed. I was cherished by both my parents. I enjoyed an equally close (but definitely different) personal relationship individually with both Mother and Daddy.
Though both my parents greatly loved me, their love for one another was often lacking. They separated once when I was in 7th grade and I had such an emotional meltdown over it that they reconciled and stayed together "for the children's sake." After more than twenty years of marriage (much of it unhappy) my parents divorced when I graduated from high school.
My "world" and my sense of security was shaken to its core. The summer after my graduation holds memories for me of little beyond bitter accusations between my parents, emotional and physical upheaval, disillusionment and despair over the loss of home and family and friends. Such was the state of my being when I left Florida at 18 years old and traveled to Mississippi to enroll in an all girls college. To say that my freshman year of college was an emotionally fragile and vulnerable time in my life would be an understatement of classic proportions!
I had crossed the threshold into the world of "young adult" without my past childhood world intact. I will forever be grateful that God led me to a Christian college where the Balm of Gilead was applied to my wounds in daily chapel services, where teachers related their English, Biology, and History lessons to God's sovereignty in the lives of men, where every meal began with reading of a scripture and prayer, where we were encouraged to unite with the local church (on campus) and connect with the people of the town.
Only a few weeks into this setting, I met Prince Charming - The one and only, irrepressible, Roy Wooley! He filled my life with fun and laughter and I was smitten almost immediately. By the time I went home for Christmas vacation, I was head over heels in love.
Here we are in the Fall of 1963. By Fall of the next year we were married.
I am convinced that as emotionally needy as I was at that time in my life, I probably (foolishly) would have "fallen in love" with anyone who showed me adequate attention and acceptance. I am eternally grateful to God for His sovereign orchestration of placing Roy there for me instead of someone else. I have no doubt that being Roy's wife is the "good work God prepared beforehand that I should walk in." (Eph. 2:10)
Roy did not grow up, as I had, going to church every time the door was open. His family were wonderful country folk who loved God but had never been deeply involved nor active in a church.
For the first two or three years of our marriage we pretty well adapted to Roy's custom of finding things "more fun than church" to do on weekends. In 1968, when my heart could no longer stand being separated from the house of the Lord, we joined a local Baptist church. I'll never forget the Sunday we joined. It was a huge source of embarrassment. My church membership was at the church on the college campus and Roy's was at a little country church where he'd been baptized when he was 12. When the pastor presented us to the congregation, I suppose he felt he needed to explain why we were coming from two different churches and he said, "Roy and Beverly come to us as a newly married couple." Then he remembered Lori (in the church nursery) and quickly added, "The Lord having already blessed them with a child." The whole time the people of the church were shaking our hands and welcoming us, I found myself wanting to explain "We didn't have to get married . . . We've been married nearly three years . . . we were married nearly two years when Lori was born . . . etc." It's a lot funnier now than it was then!
For a short while Roy went to church with me and we made friends and felt a part of the fellowship there. When Roy stopped attending and slipped back into his "more fun than church" weekend activities, I took Lori and went to church alone for a time. But I wearied of the constant questions about his absence and even resorted to lies sometimes to hide my embarrassment. This church was a warm, loving, nourishing fellowship and I had one of my favorite Sunday School teachers of all times there. Joyce Beasley loved me, accepted me and encouraged me all the years I was a part of that church and many beyond. The deceiver, however, will get at us any way he can and he used my fellow church member's questions about where Roy was to whisper into my insecure heart that they didn't want me without my husband . . . there was no place for "just me." I believed his accusations and soon it was easier for me to stay away too . . . easier to be home and available for weekend excursions and activities with my husband.
When I was pregnant with our youngest child in 1971 the Lord reawakened a hunger for Him in my heart that I could no longer deny. I had so quenched the Holy Spirit within me and grieved Him during my years of self-centered waywardness that I was miserable inside. God led me to a point of recommitment that was as powerful and life-changing as my salvation experience had been. In fact, I carefully reevaluated my childhood salvation experience at that time because I found it so utterly incredulous that I could have turned my back for a period of YEARS on what had once meant EVERYTHING to me.
Have you ever heard the old adage: Faith that fizzles before the finish was faulty from the first. Well, there had been some "faults" in my faith but there was FAITH. And there was the powerful working of the precious Holy Spirit of God Who reproved me of sin and wooed me back to the One Who loved me and gave Himself for me.
Being led of the Lord, I joined a different local church and raised my three children (who were 18 mos., 3 and 7 at the time I joined) there. Roy attended with us only when the children had a special program and when they each were baptized. This church was such a vital and vibrant part of our lives and filled us with such joy that it pretty well personified Psalm 122:1 for my children and me.
In this church, like the churches of my childhood, God's servants taught me, loved me, encouraged me, and gave me a sense of belonging. In this church God developed my spiritual gifts and gave me opportunities for expressing them. Those were wonderful years - years when I could say with all my heart "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord." They were years in which God's Word took deep root within the soil of my life.
In 1988, I felt God's prompting to leave this church I loved with all my heart, AND the only denomination I'd ever been a part of, to go to another local church . . . a non-denominational, elder ruled, newly emerging congregation. There were a dozen reasons I didn't want to go to the new church and MANY reasons I wanted to stay where I was. But God's Spirit was persistent and unmistakable. He birthed in me a deep and abiding hunger for a new level of worship and called me to follow Him in its pursuit.
For the next 12 years or so, in this church, God taught me more about worshipping Him than I'd learned in all the years of my life that had preceded. Again, God taught me, and grew me, and gave me opportunities for serving Him beyond all my dreams. He allowed me to be a part of a fellowship of believers who became as dear to me as family . . . and truly, that's what we were - together, the family of God. What an awesome privilege! I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.
Thank you, my Father, for making me glad when I entered:
- Calvary Baptist Church
- Harrisburg Baptist Church
- and First Evangelical Church
Stay tuned for Part 3 - GRIN!
1 comment:
WOW! Can't wait for part 3!
Thank-you, Thank-you! I admit---I am HOOKED!
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