God with Us

I remember the very first time that I actually worshiped my Heavenly Father—my friend and co-worker, Libby, had told me about a musical that her church, Chestnut Ridge was doing. She talked about how the music was just so worshipful and that she had a demo cassette tape that she had been listening to and offered to let me borrow the tape. I remember that Eddie was working second shift and my children were little. I had put them to bed and put the tape on to play while I cleaned my kitchen. As soon as I started listening, I was brought before the Throne of Grace. I had never experienced such worship! I had tears in my eyes as I was overcome with such love—I wanted to stay in that moment forever. I think that was my very first taste of the kind of worship that I knew I was made for—the kind of worship that is uninhibited and allows for God to be truly praised.

At that time, I was a member of a very ritualistic denomination—a very loving congregation but missing that element of worship. Well, I set out to change the way we worshiped. I asked for more contemporary music, more in depth prayer groups, more intimate conversations in Sunday School—any kind of program that I thought would bring our little church to it’s knees, I wanted to try. After a while, Eddie got on the bandwagon too—we were on fire for the Lord, but our denomination kept extinguishing the flames or at least they tried. There were some issues in our church that we did not agree with and we sought to get them changed. By this time our children were teenagers and their Sunday School teacher was living a sinful lifestyle—but our church seemed to turn a blind eye where that was concerned. Eddie confronted that person and told him that he was living in sin and needed to repent—he told Eddie that he was sorry he felt the way he did but offered no remorse. Eddie then approached the pastor and several members but was told that it was not our place to judge him and we should just love him and accept him as he was—we did love him, but not his sin. After a while, we decided that the only people that were going to change were us—that is when we decided to change churches. It was not a decision that we made lightly—this was the church that Eddie had been raised in and the church that we married in, our children were raised there—we had many good memories associated with that church. We prayed and asked God to reveal His plan for us—to lead us to a place where we could grow and worship Him. I remember that we talked with an older lady in our church one night—we told her of our conviction that we needed to change churches but that we were torn because of the ties we had with that church. I will never forget what she told us—she said, “Eddie, this will hurt your mama badly, but she will get over it. You have to do what is right for you and your family.” I really appreciated her telling us that—she died shortly after we moved but I will always have that memory of her.

The first church I wanted to visit was Chestnut Ridge, of course. I longed for that worship and praise that I had experienced on that tape. Well, we ended up only visiting one other church and deciding that Chestnut Ridge was where we belonged. I am so glad that God was with us and directed us to this place. We have grown so much spiritually, praised God like I never imagined and made some amazing friends. Thank you Jesus for being our Strength and our Refuge—for being ever present—always with us.