Eight years. Eight very fast and very long years.
I've had a lot of great things happen in that period of time and I've captured almost all of them through a photograph or a medical blog on my CaringBridge site.(http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/beccalovesbrooklyn) In that period of time, I have learned what Facebook is and used it for what it can be - an instantanious way to encourage people and do life together. Oftentimes I have referred to it as FAITHbook. I've seen the ways it can be used to hurt people, but I prefer looking at all the ways it can heal people and love on them from a distance. You can find me there almost every single day. I like to post the devotions I do in the morning from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young and Prayers For Emotional Wholeness by Stormie Omartian.
Something else life-changing happened just a week after my last entry on here. I found Vineyard Church, or rather, it found me. It was 2:30 pm on Saturday, April 1 and I went out to get the mail from our apartment at North Oak Crossing. There was a direct mail postcard from Vineyard Church that had the bare feet of a son, mom, dad and daughter under a puffy white down comforter and it said "Sleep in on Sundays!" Being in advertising and marketing, I pay a little more attention to "junk mail" than the average person. I thought it was cute and looked to find a spot for it on my already fully refrigerator. There were photos, inspirational messages, magnets from various trips and travels, appointment cards for doctor and dental visits and a Christmas-themed post card - on the first day of April. I thought I could bare to part with it and when I took it down I noticed that both it and the new post card were from a church called Vineyard. I smiled and thought it funny that I would want to display both of their mailings on my fridge, considering I had never been to that church before.
I looked closely at the new one and on the other side, to the left of my address with the words "Pendarvis Family" they advertised an exciting children's ministry and various service times, including a 4 pm Saturday service. I thought to myself "If Brooklyn wakes up in the next hour, we will go check this place out." We were Catholic - I had taken RCIA and converted when I lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut and was a nanny at the age of 21. Brooklyn was baptized Catholic on October 26, 2003 when she was just shy of two months old. Every Sunday morning we got up early and drove 40 minutes down to the inner-city, to our beloved Saint Theresa Little Flower and went to 9:15 mass. When I got the postcard from Vineyard Church, I thought "We can go there on Saturday and to St. Theresa on Sunday." Brooklyn woke within 20 - 30 minutes and because the mailing said to "Come as we are" - we went as we were. Me, holding a world of hurts and Brooklyn, easily won-over by the Dum-Dum lollipops given out after Sunday school.
For the first time in my life, I experienced the feeling of the Holy Spirit - when your skin tingles and a still, small voice reassures you that you are in the right place and to just open up. With each word of the worship songs, I felt a part of my heart opening up in ways I hadn't felt since I gave birth to my daughter. The sermon was much more of a conversation/lesson from the incredibly anointed pastor, Fred Herron. Afterwards, I went up and introduced myself to him. I told him that if that was not the best sermon I had ever heard, it was for sure in the top three. I told him about getting the postcard from his church three hours earlier and deciding to just come. I told him we were Catholic and he said a lot of the people at the Saturday service were Catholics, too. He walked me up the aisle and out to the foyer to get a Journey Guide for me. He shared about a Bible study for moms. They were doing a study on the fruits of the spirit. I didn't know what those were, but his voice was so calming and reassuring when he told me to call a lady named Kate LaFrance who was co-leading the group.
I picked up Brooklyn from her Sunday school room and she joyfully picked out her first (of many!) lollipops. I was just as won-over with the free Roasterie coffee they had out, so I understood her happiness. From that point on, Brooklyn referred to Vineyard as the "Lollipop Church" and I couldn't argue, because by going there, our life became blessed by very sweet people who lived out the calling in the Bible to BE the hands and feet of Jesus and minister to one another. (1 Corinthians, ch. 12)
To this day I firmly, with 100% of my heart, believe that God knew what was ahead for us and that he sent us that Vineyard postcard knowing we would need our Vineyard family to help get us through things...things like cancer, releasing strongholds and relinquishing old hurts through Oaks of Righteousness, to moving, marrying an abusive, alcoholic, bi-polar mess-of-a-man, living in a domestic violence shelter, losing Grammy and getting a Stage IV cancer diagnosis in NYC and needing to move back to Kansas. Who knows what else the future holds, but I know our Vineyard family will be there to help us get through it with the grace of God.
In the eight years I have been gone from here, I have been very much alive on CaringBridge. I can't say enough good things about the service CaringBridge provides when you are going through a major health event. To be able to share updates and prayer requests and to get uplifting messages on the guestbook is beyond wonderful when you are going through something so emotionally and physically draining. I have started sharing things on my CaringBridge that would be better suited for a book, but for now I am going to start with blogging to give my writing a place to reside. Thanks for coming along for the ride.
