Someone confessed to me last night, I used to be a youth pastor.

I responded with, Me too.

And we swapped a few details and didn't really need to say much, even though as I do, I probably said too much, because it wasn't needed and we saw each other.

Something to the effect of, how could the church have so many empty rooms 99% of the time while the homeless underneath the very sign went without love and help?

After the conversation I cried. Yet again. As Uncle Peter says, the plot sickens. I could go on and on about former classmates who went out guns ablazing into the mision field.

And got kicked out, run out, burnt out.

Or like I heard last week, yet another pastor friend of mine quit. Nothing immoral, nothing really wrong, but no one could agree and he said, this isn't the Gospel I was taught and preach, and left.

So many of us have gone, left, faded into the wordwork, pivoted, changed, reinvented ourselves. Walked away. The current lingo is, deconstructed. Some merely from what they believed was their calling, others to their faith, some both.

This blog for the last year and half has given me space to tell our stories and even though the names have been changed to protect the innocent, I feel released from my cone of silence by using this blog to tell the story.

And last night, I told my friend, I feel more found than ever.

Last week however, I had moments of doubt, anxiety and uncertainty and someone asked, meaning well enough, asked me a whole mountain of questions. One of them stating more or less, are you following your calling?

That and other questions made me angry, sad and worse feeling than I had already felt about working my butt off super hard with very little current visible results and I had a long talk with Andrew and a long, deep conversation with God as I lay in bed about to sleep.

As I prayed, I was reminded again and again and again all the different moments of my life when things changed suddenly and I went a different direction and yet always convinced of God's voice behind me (and Andrew) saying this is the way, walk in it.

I woke up with the passage in Matthew in my heart, when Jesus is 40 days in the desert and at the end, exhausted, hungry and probably not too healthy, the devil comes.

He asks, Are you really who you say you are? If you are, change the stones into bread? And, if you wanna just avoid your pain and sorrrow and suffering to be, just worship me and everything in earth will worship you?

Even though the questions I faced were not from the Devil, I felt as though some elements felt similiar. Like, are you doing what you are supposed to? And, if you just look inward, you'll find the strength. Worship the god within, and everything you wish for will be manifested.

Those questions that Jesus rejected with all the right answers came right before Jesus exploded onto the scene. The Devil knew that he was right at the point of no return and stabbed his hardest.

I can't see the future, but I have definetely felt we are on the cusp of something big. And the temptation to look for self strength, and doubt my calling, and God, was huge last week.

But I woke up with Jesus's stance in my ears, and I stood next to him saying the same things. Jesus is real, He is God, He's lead and guided me and Andrew our whole lives. He's not gonna quit on me now. I won't bow to worship other gods, or myself. Before I had woken to these verses in my head, I had a dream with a Spanish friend who is a chef who handed me two grilled fish, and said, These are for you.

And suddenly, the major concern I had, disapated. The money we needed for the rest of month literarly apeared in a bank account and supposedly had been there since the 24th of December.  The two fish in my dream became a reality.

And then this weekend happened.

Because as I have written this blog, I've found again and again what is the good news, and have left the behind what it is not.

It isn't buildings, programs, budgets, lights, cameras, action.

It isn't a club for the right people.

And following Christ doesn't mean that you

1. Go to a church, the right one.

2. Be a good moral person, or at least look like one. Gotta tuck away that crazy.

3. Believe the right things, because if you believe the wrong ones, you don't have a guaranteed spot through those pearly gates.

4. Judge everyone else who doesn't do the first three things in the way you think need to be done.

So what is the good news?

We are new, we are free, and we are healed.

In this newness, freedom and healed state, our obligations are as follows:

1. Get a cup of cold water for those in prision, in need. 

2. Feed the hungry. Doesn't matter their religion, creed, gender, immigration status, sexual orientation. Feed them.

3. Visit them. Sit with them in their grief. Go to their weddings, communions, brises, and celebrate. Cry when they are sad, laugh when they are happy. Sit with them. Visit them in the hospital. Talk with them in the street. Go drink beers with them when they need to talk. Watch a movie and laugh and cry together. Visit.

4. Help them. Buy them a care package when they are sick. Take them to the hospital when they can't. Pick up their kids from school when they have too much work. Tutor them in language, love, math, real estate advice. Send flowers, buy candy, buy a cup of coffee. Pass it forward. Counsel them. Listen to them.

5. Find the widow and the orphan. Send them Christmas presents from afar, buy them food, call and ask how their day was, fix their cars, homes, computers, cell phones.

And when they have seen you do this, and they wonder why, tell them why and then they will follow your example, which is because that's what Christ did and he wants us to do.

Isn't that enough of a list up there? I mean, going to church and judging everyone is easy. That list above is fucking hard.

And yesterday thats what I did. I listened and related my story. I took someone the ER who couldn't find her way there and sat with her, made sure she wasn't nervous, and told someone else that yes, they can bring the wife and the 6 month old and stay with us next week.

And it was so much more of what the gospel was and how to do it that going to listen to some sermon and stroke someones ego about how great it was worded. 

So I and my husband will carry on. Visiting, sending money to those who need it, buying care packages, listening, driving people to where they need to go. Sitting in ER's holding hands, and when necessary, words will be said to explain how deep and wide and immense God's very love is for us. And when it gets dark, and cold and we reach out to see where God is, He reminds us of Jesus, his walk in the desert and gives us 2 fish.