A Little History...

Hello there! Can't believe I've only posted once! I was so anxious to get this started! I've been pretty busy with college, and just haven't gotten a chance.

Wow! It's kind of hard to just jump in... you'd need to know my life's history for the past 10 months or so to understand all I'm saying and feeling. Guess I'll just start and try to explain, as best I can, those 10 months - in a nutshell.

In September, I believe, of last year (2008) the pastor of the church my family were members of felt (for various reasons that I won't go into detail on just now) that the Lord was telling him it was time to move on, so he resigned as pastor. It was really hard... especially since his wife is my mom's cousin (making their kids mine and my sister's cousins) and we were/are really close to them. I don't have any brothers, but I've always wanted them, and Ben (the oldest of the two boys, and the third child, but almost ten years younger than me) and I have always been close, best friends really, and I always called him my "adopted little brother" :) . We'd all gotten used to seeing each other and fellowshipping three times a week! Before we joined there, it seemed like we all never got to see each other enough. And Cousin Jonathan was such a dedicated, hard-working, deep-stuff preacher, it seemed that each service, I always came away with something 'deep' and new to ponder and think about. Anyway, long story short, it was really hard when things as we knew them were no longer that way. Cousin Jonathan and them went to a church near where they live, and eventually joined there, after visiting for quite a while, and feeling like that was where the Lord would have them settle. But us? Well, all I can say is that there followed for my family about five painful months of visiting church after church, or sometimes having 'church' alone in our house because it was just so emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually exhausting to keep 'being burnt' at every place we'd visit. 'Burnt' in the sense that each place we'd go, there was something that wasn't quite right about it, and we just couldn't all feel the Lord leading us to "that one either."
Finally in February, one Saturday afternoon at lunch, I think it was, we were considering (again) where we would go to church the next morning. Then Dad mentioned a church in town (we live about 7 miles out in the country) and asked if we'd all feel like trying there. It was right under our nose! I still don't know why we hadn't thought to visit there long before then. But when Dad mentioned it, the rest of us were just about ready to try any suggestion, once anyway. So that's what we did. That first Sunday we just went to morning service, just to see. Looking back, it makes me laugh to think of my first impressions! I had been disappointed soooo many times, that at this point, I was just about automatically finding things to pick on - not intentionally, just, well, I was afraid to hope. On our way back to the house after the morning church service, we all agreed that it was worth going again, "just to see". So next Sunday found us there again. And the next. Then we started going for evening service and Sunday school as well. By the second Sunday though, I knew Victory Road Baptist Church was my home.