tullos.org \o/

As a pastor, I have an unusual perspective. I stand before my family, my church, my critics, and my dearly beloved. They see me but I also see them. I stand every Sunday overwhelmed by the task of shepherding people just like me. We sing together as a body. We sing words about brokenness, healing, joy, celebration and faith. And as I stand before them I am vulnerable because I have lost the ability to act adjusted, healed and together. 

I scan the audience and I see a couple that is on the verge of collapse. I see a man of great faith, equipped with an oxygen tank struggling for breath in the battle of inoperable cancer. I see a teenager that is barely hanging on. I see an 87 year old widow who every day battles on my behalf in prayer. I see a couple that is praying for God to send them a child and another that went through a miscarriage. I see a cynical man, a recovering alcoholic, a wounded son, a daughter seeking a vision of a loving father, a handsome young man whose life has been placed on hold because of a mysterious siezure disorder. I see a couple whose son is off to serve as an aviator missionary in Afganistan, concerned but full of peace that I can't explain.

I

am 

overwhelmed.

All I can pray is "Lord Jesus, Son of God have mercy on me a servant that so often is blind to Your ways."

The music begins.

The Spirit sweeps across the church.

The wanderlust for holy ground begins.

We are connected.

We are reminded.

We are arrested by His grace.

And I remember the source of healing and truth and freedom and hope and glory is  sealed in the cross that unites us. 

Spirit dances with truth and anything is possible.