Why Church?

Early on in this journey God spoke to me "Immerse yourself in Me or he will immerse himself in you." I pocketed that for a time, not thinking much of it. I thought that I did immerse myself in Him daily, so I put that thought up on a back shelf.  To be totally honest, I was being all snobby high and mighty, thinking perhaps this was an encouragement for John.  Hah! Was I wrong.

Our beautiful grandbaby, Connor was born on Tuesday Feb. 28th, with both mom and him healthy and happy. The next day John had a biopsy done on his tongue. Then on Thursday John had a biopsy done on his neck, that swelled immensely. It turns out that they nicked a blood vessel during the biopsy. As John says, "They told me it was a one in a thousand chance... Guess I was the one thousand patient." :) On Thursday during John's biopsy, our daughter, Kate called to inform us that our little grandbaby Connor had a hernia and they were going to operate on him. :( This is common, but it was just one more thing to add to a plate that was already tipping. By Friday John's swelling had gotten worse, he looked like he had the mumps. On Friday morning they did a cat scan on John's chest to make sure the cancer hadn't spread to his lungs. After the scan at Mac we went to Juravinski (the cancer hospital) to meet with the team of head and neck cancer specialists. They were going to put a treatment plan together for John. As we were waiting for the the doctors and filling out forms a doctor came in to speak with us. He informed us that the radiologist from Mac had called and we needed to go straight to ER stat! They had found blood clots on both of Johns lungs!

I remember distinctly a feeling of sliding down the chair in the waiting room and 4 words being spoken very clearly to me... God  has  abandoned  you.

As the day wore on, test after test being done, I remember making calls and texts to those around me asking for people to pray. My poor man was lying there, his neck growing, his fear climbing with each new doctor coming in with yet another bad report. They said "We're going to have to admit you... we can't give you blood thinners because your neck will bleed out...we may have to do an emergency trach if the swelling doesn't subside...  there may be more clots in your legs..." and on it went. Along with those words were also words of encouragement from my church body. Person after person was offering to come and sit with us. However I was of the mindset that it would be a waste of a person's time to come. I felt that there was nothing they could do. They would only be sitting there, possibly catching some yucky virus to take home to their families. 

Remember those words "Immerse yourself in Me or he will immerse himself in you? "Well he did! I, in my proud ways thought that it would be a waste of time to have others there. I only needed God didn't I? Wrong! There was a battle raging in my mind. I was brought down by the enemy who lied to me with the words, "God has abandoned you." This happened because I was alone, frightened and without the church body around to support John and I.  

Sadly, I've always viewed church as a small part of our walk with God, and have shared this with many. I've believed that it's our personal, daily walk with Him that gives us our strength. While this is true, I was missing another important element to my faith walk. The element that was missing, is the strength of the church body as a whole. 

John and I needed people to literally be there with us as we were in a battle. When there is a war being waged and a soldier goes down in enemy territory what do the other soldiers do? They come up alongside, get the wounded off the field and protect him. The same goes in the wars we battle everyday. Whether it is cancer, depression, grief or divorce. Whatever your battle is, a war is being waged, people are hurting and as the church, we need to come up alongside one another. There truly is strength in numbers. That's "Why Church."