something beautiful

I've lived in San Diego for almost four and a half years now, and how that much time has already passed boggles my mind. When I moved here in January 2006, I had no intention of staying long term. I have no family here and am very close to my family back in Canada, so not having family here has often been hard for me. Yet, for the first time in the past four and half years,I truly feel and know I do have family here I can depend on. Serving others has an interesting byproduct; in the process of helping/serving others, you are the one who ultimately gets blessed. The result of my participation in different ministries (Hospitality, Homeless, Step-Up) has been that God has given me brothers and sisters who have blessed me so much here in San Diego. Proverbs 18:16 says, " A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great". I really feel that over the course of the past 10 months I have been ushered into the presence of so many beautiful, loving people.

When I had car trouble last Saturday (it died multiple times), one of my "brothers" from Church Without Walls took time out of his afternoon plans with his family to come help me jump it and see what the problem was. A really good friend of mine then spent the better part of his Saturday afternoon running around with me trying to get a good deal on a battery, finding someone who could install it at no charge, and then picking me up again later when the car died a second time. On Sunday, another "brother" spent a couple more hours running around with me, trying to see if we could get the other part needed to fix the problem to avoid having to go to the dealer (turns out my car is abnormal and dealer was unavoidable). And, on Tuesday, I was blessed off my socks when yet another "brother" took time out of his day to go to the dealer with me and... ultimately offered to cover the cost of the repairs, saying (to paraphrase) "You spend so much of your time doing Gods work. He clearly wants and needs you to have this car working. My money is God's money, let me use His money to pay for the repairs so you can keep doing His work". Only God working in these men's lives would move them to be so generous in their time, finances, and friendship to support me.

But, what they probably don't realize is that in doing so they have been ministering to me on a whole other level. Last January, after going through some personal heartbreak, I remember praying for God to keep my heart soft towards men because I was angry and hurt and giving in to that anger would have been very easy. I know, that probably sounds funny... praying not to let my heart get hardened? But, basically I was genuinely afraid of becoming cynical.

Little did I know how many brothers God was going to bring in my life. I'm not just referring to those who helped with the car this past week. I have been so blessed to get to know so many different godly men in so many different places in the community, at so many different stages of life, not just pretending to love others but really loving them... standing on the side of good and loving people with genuine affection (Romans 12:9- 10).

Tonight, I'd like to say a very special thank you to the brothers God has given me; I'm so grateful to have them as examples of what godly men look like. I could name you, but you all know who you are. Please know that as Romans 15:17 says, "[you] have reason to be enthusiastic about all Christ Jesus has done through [you] in [your]service to God". I am grateful and blessed to have been able to see Him working through each and everyone of you.