What a walk.

What a week. What a month. Or rather, what a year. But I guess I could really some it all up by saying, what a walk.

I come away with a moment to sit and think, pondering the depths of God. Continually being rushed upon by His power, like a wave that is sure to rush across sand with the tide that ebbs and flows. Each washing brings new sediments, and then in turn, takes away some too.

Any more I ask what God is doing in the life of another. Sitting on the edge of my seat I anticipate monumental movement that encompasses His glory. Be it a season of darkness or light, His hand made evident in the daily strides. Dare the question be turned on me and I would have you pinned for hours while gasping for sips of air in-between words that couldn't come out quick enough.

How do I lace words together that construct the proper understanding of how God is moving in every moment of my everyday? The very thought is overwhelming. And yet all I want is to be able to do so in order that you too would come to a place of being tongue tied over the work of God in your life.

This past weekend we sat tucked in a corner of a local pizza joint, having never met before. Over bread twists and root-beer we held our breath as their broken stories poured out like wild honey, immersed in the love of Christ's redeeming grace. She was held at gunpoint by her abusive live-in boyfriend, and the mere whisper of Jesus turned the enemy on his heels, walking out the front door never to be seen again. He was filled with himself, pride paving the road to nowhere. Then through her, God brought him to the end of himself, breaking him to his knees in utter dependability on the only One who could sustain him.

The stories are endless, continually knocking the wind out of my lungs for just a moment by the sheer power displayed. The lives changed by the God of grace is staggering and utterly beautiful, beginning in ways of dirt and grime that are then purified and made clean by the blood of a Son.

Our own stories have been shared more in the past month than ever.

See, that's church.

The reality of Christ is made evident when our once guarded hearts become vulnerable and open. The act of being a new creation in Christ is that all things are revealed in order for new to reside. What's better is that the sharing that once felt legalized and required is now a desire of interest—the act of repentance is not a have-to, but rather a want-to. The freedom that comes from leading transparent lives is all together the most outstanding thing I could ever pin-point. The fact that I can meet two strangers who claim Christ, tell them where I have been and where God has since taken me, all the while still loving me (if not loving me more), is utterly glorious.

What's more? The fact that we can come to a place of saying, I was wrong.

It will wreck you in all that is beautiful and holy. And I suppose that that's what I love the most. Meeting people from every road that led this way and that, uniting and joyfully admitting we were all once wrong, that we were all once lost, but now we are all found.

...this is where I lean back, smile, and say thank you a million times over...

What a walk it's been.

I anticipate the continued walk ahead.