Several years ago, amidst much prayer about my purpose, I really started to hear God. Like, really. Clearly. So, I started to ask God more questions...things that were heavy on my heart. For example, I don't go to church very often and so in turn, neither does my family. This is TERRIBLE, the guilt ways heavy. My mom took 4 kids to church, people around us get up and go...we don't. It started when Steven was a newborn, Trent was in school and working all the time, and Sunday mornings were our only time home, together...church did not win, family time did. But now Steven is 4, and we still aren't back in the habit. Guilt. So I told God, I'm sorry. But more importantly, I questioned him this: Why do I go to church and struggle to keep kids quiet or entertained and in turn get nothing spiritually out of attending...but I can go to the 15 minute chapel service at the most magical preschool on earth and feel so full at heart and open to seeing the joy in the world all around? I love the people I've met because of that school, the families so willing to serve, to give, to support the school and each other. That place is a major blessing to hundreds of families.
Yes, I told God all of that. I'd rather go to preschool chapel vs take my kids to mass on Sunday. Sorry God but its true. And then, one day, in true Marietta::God fashion, I had an instant download in my brain, words being laid out in my brain faster than I could think them, and they answered my question. You see, says God, church is not a building...its a group of people, that gathers together as believers in Christ, to praise and thank God, to question God, to come to know God and model his presence through our own actions in the community around us. God continued: You ARE going to church. The reason your heart fills so full at that school and with those people is because that is a church of people. OMG he's right! Those families, teachers, staff, kids are amazing people, living out his teachings as best they all can and I learn from them and feel full of heart because of them. And so because of that...I take that love and energy into my part of the world, with other people and keep spreading that overflow of love. Wow! just wow. Church is people not a building. Of course it is! Why didn't I think of that?!
But then...
He says....sometimes, the reason you need to go to church, is not because you need something, but because you have something to give, something other people are gathering in that building looking for.
I am lucky enough to be part of an amazing church, the people of St. Paul's Day School. I didn't feel the need to go to mass at our parish because I wasn't drawing from it spiritually...but in true life's fashion...its not about you (me). I need to go to mass when I'm led to do so because someone else is showing up at mass looking for the exact thing I'm getting from somewhere else. Maybe I can bring that to them. Just maybe.
So you wonder now how mass has been since my great revelation...I haven't gone. Its true. This is free will, God gives us the information or leads us down the path but we have to live our life along the way. But, I have gone to chapel. I do continue to draw from that, fill my heart, and then give it away to others. It is beautiful. It is sustaining. I have only one more year with a student there but I will never leave that church, those people, we are tied together. So to you, I say, where is your church, not the building, the people? It may not be a building, and that's ok. God knows this, he likely set that all up for you. So soak up his love through them, let it build you up and then take that joy and go give it away to everyone you can find. It is what life is all about. Love.
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