If You're Broken, Come On Over! If You're Not, You Can Help Pick Up Other's Pieces...

I hadn't gotten involved in Wednesday evening activities at our church over the past few years, although my teenagers have enjoyed youth. I'm not sure why, other than to say with my work and lack of organization, it just wasn't 'easy' to do. This year, however, because I'm homeschooling Alex, I decided to try harder to get myself and Alex there--he needs to get out of the house at least once a day (me too!).

So we went, we dined on pizza and salad with our friends (our church offers dinner at 5:45 to make it easier to get there--is that cool?!). Alex had a great time at Kids' Club. I chose to attend our pastor's small study in his office. I've never done a Wednesday study, so I'm in uncharted territory. We're reading The Ragamuffin Gospel. Our church is pretty big on being church to everyone, and that includes broken people. Our pastor uses the term broken often. Sometimes I'm broken into more pieces than others. Right now, I'm in a good place. Better able to reach out to those who aren't. Part of what I love about this church so much is its willingness to reach out to the community. To not build up our armour and judge everyone else around us. To just love the people in our community, even when they step into our church practically reeking of sin, so much sin you can allmost see smoke billowing from their heads. It's okay by us if you want to come right in and sit down. There's plenty of sin to go around, and that's every church. Some are just better at dressing it up and spritzing expensive colognes on theirs is all.

I haven't read very far into the book yet, don't know if I recommend it or don't, and maybe I'll post about that later on. What I did get from the evening, from thinking about it, from reading is this: it's Friday. This can be a very lonely time for people who don't have much to look forward to right now, who are broken, breaking or are shattered. I've been there and I'm sure I'll be there again. And I'll go there again because I do have personal relationships with others and I will be hurt and sad and devastated again. From experience and from example, I also know this: there's no better way to stop focusing on our broken selves than to go out (right now, today, tonight!) and pick up someone else's pieces. I don't know why it works that way, it just does. And I think God designed it to be so....pretty sneaky/clever if you ask me! Here's to being blessed this weekend and here's to being a blessing!