In Our Row

In our row there is a woman whose husband left her for a man.

In our row there is a young woman who has had multiple abortions and is burdened by all it will take to keep the child she now carries.

In our row is a man who served a very lengthy sentence for armed robbery.

In our row is a woman who spent most of her life unable to read.

In our row is a man who spent most of his life on drugs.

In our row is a young boy who was abandoned by his parents.

In our row is a young girl who bears the scars of self-harm.

In our row is an old man surrounded by his children who once refused to speak to him.

In our row is story after story of redemption. 

When we sat in this row for the first time, we were not as you see us now. 

When we sat in this row for the first time, we were broken and messy and as sheep without a shepherd.

When we sat in this row for the first time, we wept and shook and kept to ourselves.

When we sat in this row for the first time, we just wanted the pain to stop.

When we sat in this row for the first time, we knew we could not go on living as we had.

When we sat in this row for the first time, what is now our past was then our present.

But week after week, within this row we began to see. 

We encountered the One who is able to turn lives upside down, to make a mess a message and a test a testimony. 

We encountered the One who had a plan for us all along, who longed to have us share in it, who longed to have us draw close that we might hear Him whisper. 

We encountered the One who cast out our sins, who clothed us in His righteousness and left us sitting in our right minds, renewed and His.

We encountered the One who commands us to be holy as He is holy.

We encountered the One who gives us His Holy Spirit to guide us and correct us in following after His example.

We encountered the One who will never leave us or turn His back on us in this undertaking.

We encountered the One who is faithful to change us according to the work He began in us the first time we surrendered ourselves to Him, in our row.