I love Sundays!

This started out to be a really long post, but I'm cutting some stuff out and will add it in another post tomorrow. What I mostly wanted to tell you was... Church this morning was a joy! Before the service started, I was talking to a great guy who (with his wife) is getting ready to start/lead a Celebrate Recovery group at our church. Earlier in the morning I had felt led/free to tell him that if he would ever like me to come and do any music for them at any of their meetings, that I would love to. He broke into a laugh and said they usually start with some worship and that he and his wife had been praying for God to put it on somebody's heart to help in that area. : ) Is that sweet or what? Especially since I had been choosing to TRUST GOD to lead me to opportunities to share and sing. And even though I won't be doing it every week, I am totally excited about the opportunity to be a part of what God is going to do through this new ministry at our church. Yay! And to top it all off, I learned something new this morning! : ) What was especially cool about that (because yes, I learn stuff at church all the time) was that it was from a passage I am so very familiar with. Our associate/resident/almost-planting-his-own-church-pastor Gary was preaching about God giving us unlimited mulligans in life (unlike what you get in golf!) He talked about Peter denying Christ and read the passage where Christ restored Peter. (Where Jesus asks Peter 3 times "Do you love me?") You know what I noticed for the first time ever? That Jesus didn't just restore Peter to a right relationship with Him. He restored him to MINISTRY. Perhaps because of what God has taught me this year, that seems huge to me. When Peter responded to Jesus' questions saying "Yes, I love you" and "You know I love you!" Jesus said, "Feed my lambs" and "Take care of my sheep." He was telling Peter that he wasn't only forgiven, HE WAS STILL THE ROCK ON WHOM CHRIST'S CHURCH WOULD BE BUILT. God still chose to trust Peter with the enormous task of leading The Church. And the result? Peter wasn't just restored, he was transformed. If that's not miraculous, amazing mercy and forgiveness and grace, I don't know what is. How could I not love & follow & sing about that Jesus?????