So yesterday we tried out Southeast Christian Church in Parker Colorado. It was huge!!! I guess it has a private school in it also. The sanctuary holds about 1500 people . . . that's a lot! (And from what I've heard the band Mercy Me has come there and played. Mercy Me's song "I can only imagine" is my song for Thomas . . . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWMk_MoFTFM (I'm sure I've shared it with you before, but here it is again.) It's such an amazing song, and if going to this church gives me a chance to actually see this song performed live I think it would be one of the most beautiful moments of my life.)
Yesterday there was a guest speaker so we really didn't get to hear the real pastor (he said a prayer, but that was all we got to hear from him.), so we are going to go back there next week to hear the real pastor, but if he is anything like the guest speaker, I think we may have found our church. We really liked it that much!!!
The music was great! Not too loud, not too obnoxious, and they had a choir that got up and sang too, I love choir music!
And hope that someday when my life is more settled, that I can join a choir and sing with them.This is just a weird personal thing, I think the director of the music is this bald guy, and he sings kind of nasal-ly, and when he sings he "Scrunches" up his face like he is smelling something really icky
. . . And you can see this scruched up face huge on the monitors . . . I had to stop watching him on the monitors and just watch him . . . because his scrunchy icky smell face was getting on my nerves. I know that silly . . . but it's those little things that everyone notices, but I'm the only one that will actually tell you the way it is.So the sermon yesterdays was on Esther . . . (This is the super fast, Cheri condensed version of the sermon~ if I have any errors in my fast version of it, please forgive me, I'm still new at this!) Esther was Jewish, and after the king, (I can't remember who the king was) had got rid of his other wife because she wouldn't dance for the people and show them how beautiful she was, the king went looking for a new wife, his people found several women for him, Esther being one of them, and she found favor with the king, and so he married her. But Esther had a secret, she didn't tell the King she was Jewish. So there was this other dude who was close to the king and he decided that all the Jews should be killed (I don't remember if the pastor said why he wanted to kill the Jews or not) And Esther's people came to her and said you have to go to the king . . . well, back in those days, she could not just go to the king, even though he was her husband, if you went to the king without being called for you were killed. So she prayed and fasted and told her people to do the same, she was afraid to go before the king, she didn't want to be killed . . . but she realized that she couldn't just sit back and watch her people being killed when there was a way for her to potentially stop it . . . so she put her life at risk for the good of her people. Potentially she could die, but she could also find away to save her people.
That's pretty much all we learned . . . and we still don't know what happened to Esther . . . I guess we learn that next week . . . Part of me wants to read ahead and see what happened to Esther, but I don't know if I will or not.
This was a good church, and the service was very bible driven . . . He wanted you to follow along in the bible . . . and I liked that. We will see what the real pastor preaches like . . . I guess then we will know if this is a good Church for us.
We really enjoyed the church and sermon . . . I haven't talked with Jessie about it yet, but if we like it next week are we going to continue to look or are we going to stop and just continue on with this Church? I don't know. This is not something I will decide on my own . . . Jessie and I will decide it together . . . I think that's important, we both want to be happy at the Church we choose.
Oh here is something special that happened at this church . . .
. . . at one point in the service, the pastor called for "Prayer Partners" and all these people came out and stood all around the sanctuary . . . and the choir was singing, and they invited people to come and pray with the prayer partners . . . As I saw people getting up and leaving their seats and going and standing with someone and praying with them, I got all misty eyed . . . I was very moved by this . . . I had to blink
and blink and blink to keep the tear from falling down my face 
. . . part of me wanted to go down and pray with a "prayer partner" about my grief . . . but I just couldn't do it, I'm still so afraid that I will start to weep and never stop . . . 
But it was very moving for me to watch . . . to see people put themselves out there, to reach out to someone else and allow them in to their hurts and pains . . . For me, this is the reason why I have been searching for a church . . . the reason I have been wanting to step closer to God, I need someone to help me carry the burden of my grief . . . this pain is too much for me to hold on to all by myself. (Any of my friends who are reading this, who have been with me for this last year of grief and pain, please don't think that I am not appreciative of your care and love . . . and you have helped me so much with the pain of loosing Thomas, just by being here and caring for me and loving me, but this hurt, this loss is bigger than me, bigger than me and you put together . . . I think this is one of those times where I really need to turn the hurt over to God.)So this is my journey thus far . . . it's been interesting, this was week 4, and each time we go to a new church, it feels more and more comfortable . . . more and more like we have the potential of belonging. I like that.
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