a change of reason, pt1

The whole point of this blog was so I could rant about all the crap in my life, 'poor me, I'm so miserable' kind of stuff. Lately I've had some very good things happen to me. I don't mean happy in a superficial, here today gone tomorrow way. This is deep, heart and soul happiness. In an earlier post ('do I dare?'-11/21/06) I said that I could talk a good Christian game but mostly it was bull, that I saw the whole living for Christ 'thing' as so much absurdity. Not anymore. Part of this change has to do with what happened on Fri the 5th and Sat the 6th. But all of what follows had the effect it did because Lotis finally told me (essentially gave me permission) to be more sociable. It loosened me up, made me more receptive.

In my Jan. 1 post I mentioned a Messengers' prayer meeting at Dave's. The day after posting I called Lotis, she said it was fine with her that I come but I should check with Renee to be sure. I called Renee and she said ok (and thanked me for asking). The meeting was Fri the 5th, and it went from 7p to around 11p. Dave was there of course, and I walked past him a couple times but I didn't make it a point to catch his eye. I say it's not a big deal and yet I can't help wondering if Dave and Renee talked about my behavior after everyone had gone home. Do they think I'm doing a better job? Do they talk about me at all? At least these questions don't take up the majority of my day anymore.

From 10:30p on Fri to 5a on Sat my church had an All Night of Prayer. I knew about this beforehand and had not planned to go for 3 reasons: 1)It was going till 5a and I didn't want to ride the bus home that early in the morning; 2)I would probably be the only one there not praying out loud (kind of a big thing in my church); and 3)I was afraid the only reason I'd be going would be to see and hear John Piper in a less formal setting. At the Messengers' meeting I took care of the ride problem and not praying aloud there made me comfortable enough to not worry about not praying aloud at church. As for the third reason, concerning motive, I figured that if I could keep my focus off Dave for a couple hours I could do the same with John, especially since there were more people at church than I thought.

So that was Fri and part of Sat, tomorrow I'll post more on the rest of Sat (the ride home and the evening service).