Just some thoughts...

It's Friday night. The first Friday night of summer vacation actually. A very relaxed feeling has come over me in the past 48 hours, and if you've read my last post, you'll understand that this feeling is quite welcome. As I left the LCBC building on Wednesday afternoon after cleaning off my desk and saying "goodbye" to the staff (it's not really goodbye, it's just "I won't be seeing you during the work week anymore," but definitely a significant change), I was shedding several tears. But God is good...

Back up a bit. All of this "stuff" surrounding my job started several months ago. I started feeling that nudge from God that perhaps I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I found myself ignoring Him, arguing with Him, whatever I could do to avoid giving that nudge any real thought. And yet God continued to lovingly, patiently guide me in the right direction. I repeatedly sensed Him saying "Trust me. Just trust me with this. You have no idea what I have in store for you." In my silly humanity, I wondered what could be better than having a job at a church that I love, in a ministry that I love, working with people I had very quickly grown to love. After all, I had REALLY wanted this job. Yep, that's right, I doubted that God knew what He was talking about. But He nudged on. So finally I gave in. I stopped avoiding and arguing and doubting. Obviously, this decision to step down was not easy. But once I made it, the peace started to come in little bits and pieces, each at the right time and in the right amount to get me through the doubting, I'm-having-second-thoughts-about-my-decision moments.

So my last day approached very quickly. I was having a hard time letting go. But on the Sunday before my last day, John Wilkinson (senior high pastor at LCBC) did the teaching for the service. He spoke about the "groove" of life. It was a great teaching in so many ways, from the examples of music he used to illustrate his point to his points about how we choose to fill "the dash." Click here to listen to the teaching, "Beyond the Dash" - you'll be glad you did. Anyway, the thing that I walked away with was the fact that there is a natural, God-created groove to life, and you know what? I was fighting it. The groove includes two things: Loving God and Loving Others. Towards the end of his talk, John asked us to examine what was crowding out the true groove in our lives. It all served as confirmation that I had made the right decision, and that confirmation came at exactly the right time.

Back to my last day. As I left the building, I was doubting that things in my life were going to be "groovier" now that I wasn't working. God totally knew how I was feeling (duh!) because when I woke up on Thursday morning and started the first day of summer vacation with my boys, I felt great. Relaxed. Renewed. At peace. I could feel in my heart that God was proud of me. Even after it took me a while to obey.

God is so, so, so good. Not just to everyone else, but to me - Cindy Keener - stubborn, prideful, doubter extraordinaire.