Sunday, October 26, 2025
It's hard to sum up this day. It was everything, sometimes everything all at once. Heartbreaking, healing, hopeful, terrifying, joy-filled, sorrowful. Today was Aaron's final day preaching at RG. This day came so much sooner than our plans ever would have thought up. Theses past few months, weeks have been nothing like I thought it would be. This time last year, we did not picture life to look like there. Yet here we are. God, why? I've asked him that a lot lately. I think maybe I'm starting to see glimmers of the answer. But it still feels so blurry. The future still seems so uncertain, but maybe that's how it's always been and we just fool ourselves into thinking that we can predict anything at all. This morning was an answer to prayer - getting to be at NC together, feeling so warmly welcomed, feeling a sense of peace like this is where God wants us right now in this particular season. Feeling a peace in that this is the type of environment I want our kids to see as normal, this is what church should actually look like - people of many different backgrounds, walks of life, cultures, ethnicities coming together and being the church. Women not being hidden away, only serving in unseen ways. Music that stirs the soul to sing. Joy in God. I feel like I'm slowly becoming the person I'm meant to be. A little less scared of what people think. A little more sure of my value and worth. Thicker skin with a heart that is still soft. I'm liking the woman I'm becoming and I haven't always been able to say that honestly. I've felt for a long that that I've not been good enough, not meeting the mark of the expectations of those that had power. Like our counsellor said to me, I've never been more free in my life. Free of their judgment, into the freedom that is in believing that who Christ made me is not something he regrets. Watching Aaron preach for the last time at RG was heartbreaking. He is such a good pastor, such a good heart. This shouldn't be the end... but it is and for some reason this is for the best. So I'll try my best to see it that way. I'll try my best to believe that maybe this is the only way God could have set us free from what was comfortable and familiar into something that will bring is the most joy and him the most glory. It hurts to leave. It hurts so freaking much. It hurts to feel betrayed by the people who vowed to be there for you. It hurts how messy this whole situation is, how confusing. It hurts to see RG be in the state it is in, so much strife and fighting. It hurts to see my husband hurting. Some times I just want to scream at people at give them a piece of my mind, but God stops me. I'm so thankful for J and R and their whole family. God really puts the right people along your path at just the right time. To be held with so much love as it felt our world was falling apart - only God could orchestrate even the details like this, of where I would be when Aaron preached his last sermon at RG. It's late as I type this so my thoughts are so jumbled but I'll end with this. God really is in control, I need to really truly trust that. I hate the hurting, I hate the wilderness - but maybe one day it will all make sense.
