sweet home.

12 May 2011 15 Comments

by mary kathryn tyson in family & friends who are family, life abundant.

I don’t even know how to begin telling you about my weekend in Alabama. It’s one of those experiences you have that you know was good, just hard to find words to explain how good, or in a way that others would really know.

First, thank you so much for covering us in prayer. So much. It was such a special weekend to be with the youth-family of Kingwood Church in Helena, AL. {As promised, so you know, I did spend my time in the air praying for each of the requests you sent in as well as some others that came to mind.}

This trip came about all because Kim & I connected in the blogosphere last fall. She reached out after I had written a few particular posts to which she connected. Not long after that, during my busiest make-up season {Christmas}, I happened to have a weekend free that she was planning to drive up to NC to attend a Night of Worship with Jonathon David Helser in High Point. I couldn’t imagine not seeing her, if for no other reason than she was making the effort to come all that way. As expected, we connected in real life just as we had in our virtual one. We spent the rest of the weekend with her best friend from high school in Raleigh and I loved them immediately, too.

She came back to visit around the time of her birthday in February and we had a really special weekend together.

In each ‘retreat’ we’ve had together, we have dealt with some broken places in each of us. We have spent time ministering to one another, hugging each other’s hearts, praying and just being still before the Lord together. She is one of my biggest cheerleaders, this woman I would not know if our cooky worlds had not collided but for the blog-world, and I am of her as well.

Kim has told me about both her nuclear family and her extended one and I knew they would all be special but didn’t anticipate an actual time I would get to spend with any of them until she invited me to come and be a part of Worship Experiment.

Worship Experiment…well, this is how I explained it to my Bible Study last night: while it wasn’t necessarily exclusive…sort of it was, but in the best way. It was a weekend for the youth of their church who are already there with God…the ones you don’t have to push or pull, they just fall naturally into Jesus because they are doing it on their own, anyway. It was clear that each of the kids who attended already have a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus. While anything can happen, they are the ones you don’t really worry about anything hampering their walk with the Lord later. They will be the campus ministers and community leaders.

There was little ‘teaching’…it was truly what the name of the retreat would indicate: it was a time for them to go further with the Lord through different medium of worship. We had a station for the kids to ask one another questions that they wouldn’t have otherwise asked, another for them to make their own videos responding to different creeds around the room. We bought huge canvases, one for folks to paint an interpretation of the retreat logo to commemorate the experience; the other was left up for the seniors to come in and paint a sunset. Mandi finished this painting and emailed it to me. I had tried to ‘help’ her but it looks far more beautiful now than it did before I stopped ‘helping’. {Mandi, it truly is beautiful.} The most wonderful part about it is that Mandi is a photographer, not a painter (though I would beg to differ) but she opened herself up and found a different way to touch God through painting.

We had a prayer room and then I led a station for ‘drawing our spirits’. Kim was concerned about her son, Trent, being in my group…but can I just say? I. LOVE. TRENT. SULLIVAN. He is funny but not immature. Silly but not obnoxious. Doesn’t take himself (or anyone or anything) too seriously, but really loves God. He also has a deep well, but I think he manages to keep that under wraps. He sat down in the first group to paint his spirit and was among the last to leave. While I think a small group of them may have missed the point of the exercise, it was worth it for the vast majority who latched on. Leila sat there for a long time, and we talked and she got it. In the end, it was just the two of us. She was unsure of the drawing she had started, which she finished as she told me her heart-breaking and inspiring and beautiful God-story. By the time she was finished talking, and finished drawing her spirit, she loved it. I loved it, too. All of it. What a special girl.

I could go on about little moments I had of observations made, or time with the Lord or with the kids, who are so only in number but not at all in age or wisdom, but for the sake of brevity, I think it would be best to tell you the parts that made my entire trip worthwhile, which was spending time with Kim in her world, getting to hang out with her family, and meeting Leigh for the first time and spending time with her.

I insert this after I finished the post because I would be remiss not to share it. Months ago Kim ‘introduced’ me to one sweet girl, Morgan, over email. She knew Mrs. Kim had a friend who was praying for her, but we talked for a while before she realized who I was. We hugged and had an immediate affinity for one another. What a sweet friendship I was able to begin with such a special soul.

Also? Brock & Millie? Y’all are the best. Together, yes. But, most of all, independent of one another, in Jesus. Couldn’t get enough of either of you. You are both grace-givers, love-sharers, friend-makers, world-changers. I have so much love in my heart for you both.

I’m not even sure how or when Leigh and I met, but it was also through blog-land. And it was love at first type. We have similar wit, but she is by far the smarter version of myself. {I looove people who have a smart wit. I don’t much care for potty-humor, but a smart wit is hysterical to me and that girl has one.} We were expecting her to come in on Friday night, and we were worshiping through music in a dark room with candles when she arrived. She very graciously tells her story about us meeting today, actually, on her own blog so I won’t re-tell what she’s already said, even though it makes me laugh to think about our first conversations related to Gilligan’s Island and my lesson in geography. {Thank you, Leigh, for laughing with me and not making me feel dumb(er).}

[P.S. WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE TELL ME I DID WEIRD THINGS TO MY EYEBROW THAT DAY? WOH.]

Leigh is the type of friend everyone should be so lucky to find: encouraging & loyal. A great listener & an amazing counselor. She is unassuming & comfortable in her own skin, which makes anyone else feel comfortable in theirs, too. She doesn’t have irrational needs or expectatations and can hold her own. She is as fun & funny as she is beautiful. She is simply a lovely soul. I feel so fortunate to call her my (real life) friend. What a treasure to this world she is.

My equally ‘best’ experience last weekend was being in Kim’s world. Our visits have mostly been in mine, but to see with my own eyes in the middle of the people she loves most…I understand now where she draws her strength and saw firsthand from whom others draw theirs. I got to watch her guide the students, and they listened. They adore her. Until last weekend, I have only seen one side of her. But last weekend, I got to see the rest of her, which probably makes up over half her heart.

Plus, she has fantastic bed-head.

One of the most refreshing things about the weekend was witnessing Kim & their equal-parts hilarious and awesome youth pastor Jeremy lead…by not leading…their youth. No micro-managing, no one controlling the event, no weird codependency between the kids and their leaders…the youth most definitely respect ‘Mrs. Kim’ and Jeremy but there was permission to simply let the Holy Spirit lead and the freedom for the kids to follow Him. They say hard things, even if contradicts southern ‘religion’. They love hard, they love well. They love in freedom and give from deep places. They are not exhausted or martyrs and it is not to gratify themselves that they work so hard. Rather they invest themselves into the lives of their youth because they know the power of God within them. It really blessed me in such a tender way to watch this.

And still the sweetest moment for me happened before Kim took me to the airport, when her daughter Sarah, whom I had met not 48 hours prior, asked me to be her god-mother. {Beth, I told her it would be like how our parents (un)officially appointed you and Don as our godparents when we were little girls. } I can think of no greater honor or more rewarding privilege than to love and help this sweet girl grow, in life and in God.

I said to the girls in my Bible Study (and by ‘my’, by the way, I don’t mean I lead it – I just attend) that the weekend wasn’t life-changing, but it was most certainly life-giving. Life-infusing. It wasn’t a ‘mountain-top’ experience…it was just a day (or weekend) in the life of people who love God.

Just as it should be.

To the Kingwood youth family, thank you for allowing me to come alongside you in the Lord and helping me grow.

My heart is bigger because of you.

I look forward to being with you again and watching as your lives in God unfold.

Love.

Advertisement