Rainy Sunday Thoughts

   Here in North Carolina today it is rainy and overcast.  This is suppose to clear up sometime Monday afternoon and then be great weather the rest of the week.  I am really looking forward to some sunny weather.  I had a dream last night that the house we use to live in when I was a kid had a fire in it.  For some reason, I thought the whole house would burn down, but after a long time the fire was put out.  However, it destroyed the floor between my old bedroom and downstairs.  While looking at the damage, I commented to someone, I think it was my mother, that this would be a good time to remodel the house.  It seems like even in my dreams, things are changing.

  That house on Elmgrove Road is still there and looks much the same as it did when we lived there.  I drove by it a few weeks ago to take a look.  In fact, much about the old neighborhood looks the same except the area around it has changed.  Use to be that there was a bridge at the very end of our neighborhood.  I called it the "bridge to nowhere" because at the other end of the bridge was woods.  It literally did go to nowhere, now it goes to the clubhouse and part of a golf course.  When I go home, everything seems to have changes around the neighborhood and now even the high school is adding on more space.

  This seems to be a season in my life where thing are changing.  I am most often resistant to change.  I like the ruts I get in and fight against moving or changing.  It reminds me of a man who was in a nursing home I worked in.  The office staff was changing and they were moving furniture.  He asked me if I would sign a petition getting them to move all the old furniture back to where it was.  He didn't know that they were simply moving some furniture.  I'm sure he was worried they would move him right on out the door.  The changes were making him feel a little anxious, especially since nobody had told him why they were moving things.  I took a few minutes to explain to him why they were moving things and how it would make things run smoother.

  I was also thinking today of how in the past I always use to like going to church.   Everytime the doors were opened I was there.  There was even a season when I was a greeter at the sanctuary door or at the back door at the church.  Sometimes as an usher and sometimes as a minister and sometimes in other capacities.  Today is Sunday and when I thought about going to church today, it just did not seem like it was worth the effort.  I thought about it for all of four seconds before dismissing the thought.  I haven't heard a sermon yet in North Carolina from a pastor that was worth getting dressed up to go hear preached.  I haven't been to a service yet that really felt like it energized me and built up my faith.  That is sad for me to say.  I wish it was not true but it is.  Ironically, I feel like my faith has gotten stronger in the last year.  I feel closer to God lately, but still not anywhere near ready to get involved in church again.  In fact, I wondered today, if Jesus was on earth today, would he have a church membership somewhere?  I wonder what he thinks of His church today?