What If I Said...: Activate 2013, Day 3: Sweetest Days

Sunday morning we attended Bethel Atlanta's church service. They're a plant from Bethel Redding in California, and an amazing community of believers. We met with some members of their team who spoke words of life over us: deep wells of inspired words, full of life and truth and promise. I know some of the people reading this don't believe in or understand God, much less what we call "prophecy". I want to try not to sound weird. But I know that there are things God spoke to me through those people, things that they had no way of knowing would even speak to me. The woman who told me she saw me as an artist, painting, but not with paints- with words. She said she saw over and over that I painted with words. The man who told me he felt like I had been living inside a box, hemmed in, confined, under pressure... But that the ceiling wouldn't hold me anymore. Well, hello! Everyone who knows me knows that I've called my house The Box House almost since the moment I moved in. And God knows I've felt those walls- and what's more, what they represent in my mind- closing in on me more than once over the past five years.

The thing that amazed me most about that church was the children. Some of them danced and sang along with the teenagers and adults. And some just sat on the floor chatting with one another, completely at ease with the intense worship happening around them. It was so completely natural to them, they didn't even notice it. There's a new kind of normal springing up in today's family. A family growing within the church family, a type of fractal that may look confusing to those outside of it... But the closer you get you see the beauty and sense and pattern of it all. I was mighty close to it on Sunday.

We went to lunch at a dive burger joint (aren't those the best kind?) after the church service and intended to walk around downtown Atlanta, but ended up driving through a downpour. While all I really wanted to do was walk around, take pictures, and sit on park benches, we did the next best thing: Visited a two story Target. That's right... I said two stories. With escalators right in the middle of the store, including one for shopping carts. My country mouse self was in awe.

We left Target and headed out into the rainy city, trying to cross the street via what we thought was an underground walkway ("Ooh, underground?! How cool!!), but upon going down the dark, dank, slippery stairs, we realized was just some sort of creepy city vehicle garage, perfect for a scene out of CSI. As hastened out of there and decided we would chance the rain.

We finally left Atlanta, with its rain and magnificent Target and disappointing underground walkways, and began to make our way toward Alabama.
Bunny trail: Ever since the very planning stages of this trip, Missy and I have been telling Carol and Lesa about Mellow Mushroom, a fantastic pizza chain. We'd already mapped out where they all were on our route, and determined to stop at at least two over the next few weeks. When we got to our hotel in Oxford, Alabama, lo and behold, across the parking lot, peeking over the top of a Harley Davidson store, was a Mellow Mushroom sign. And there was great rejoicing. Now Lesa and Carol have joined the flock of devout Mellow Mushroom lovers.

After dinner we went back to our room and had a sweet time of worship and communion, praying together and preparing for the next day, our first day out seeking people to love on.

I have to get real here for a second. This post, on rereading it, sounds completely insipid and uninspired to me. The truth is, I'm having a hard time translating all of this into words. Sunday was a wonderful, sweet day for all of us, but for me, draining. A good kind of drain, like a long day at the beach, too much time spent in the sun and sand and salt air. Because of that, I'm finding myself befuddled trying to retell it. I loved and lived every moment of it; but because of that, I'm sketchy on the details. All I'm left with is a happy impression of warmth. Which is a nice feeling, but difficult for me to pass on to you all through words. Keep on bearing with me, friends- Alabama is a good day.

-M