Trying the Cherimoya: Searching for obscurity

I was save in 1991

I began going to a charismatic (they would say non-denominational) church but it was in all senses of the word a denomination.. Which is truly ok with me... I just find some of those things funny now... The non-denomination denomination... but that conversation has been had and rehad and really isn't a part of today...

I was in that movement until 2002....

Upon the natural progression of my journey I would find a ministry where a good majority of the people had come forth from that same movement...  and I continued my journey... It felt like the natural progression in life...  So much in common.. Hunger for the revelatory things of God. Likeness in style of speaking and worship... It fit...  It felt familiar.  It was good.

There was overlapping between those two...  Those movements formed out my life from 1991 to 2008.  For almost two decades I listened to the same songs per se... The same voices.... It was a great foundation.  I love the stones that form out my base.

In 2006 we moved to South Carolina and wouldn't find a weekly expression that matched our desires until July 11, 2010... Oh friends, how do I remember... Because I remember with the greatest of fondness one can touch!  A breath of fresh air would enter my soul and the resonance of it's beauty and melodies still form and fashion me unto this day.

A house begun to be built upon my base.

Never before had I ever taken official membership in a church.  BUT it wasn't even a full month when the offer came, and we knew!  And on July 11, 2010.. I took the first steps away from all I had known.  A Church of God church with an odd name and a beautiful people.  Renovatus!  A people of the liturgy and the shout.  I met and sat under the worship of an amazing woman, Sarah DeShields, http://sarahdeshields.com/
and fell in love with a new style and a new flavor and touched life deeply within that body of faith.

Marvelous echoing and reverberations of the Kingdom were course into my soul.

And then....

We knew for a while we would be moving.

We were moving up to another people who I had loved a very long time. Who I had visited and come and gone from, and was now going to make my home within their landscape, and find new gardens and new mountains to travel.

Before the move I would cross paths with another people, and a hunger and a search would awaken and go even further and deeper....

There are names known to those of us who travel the Charismatic non-denominational paths.  There are names and ministries and leaders and churches whose names outfit the core of our communities, whose books are the basis for a good portion of our instruction, whose songs fill the air of our churches weekly....
I am not saying that is wrong or bad... We find a group who we resonate with and we allow those vibrations to have their way.

I once said, when asked about how I felt  concerning the reality of the prophetic and immense word of knowledge gifting that was growing within my husband, that for the longest time I had felt like an ugly duckling in this group or that one.. and when sitting within the home office of our new friends, I spoke now I realize I was never a duck.

Whatever language you use.. Tribe, people; we like being with like, it empowers us to feel safe, it nurtures us when we are young. As much as it does that it can also stifle and choke out creativity.  There is a time and a season for all things...

So what happens when the hand looks down upon a toe and says, "I haven't fully discovered you before."  What happens when the ear hears a far off and distant sound that still resonates but also has added a different refrain.  What happens when one part of the body ceases to say, "I am a hand," and instead says, "I am part of a much larger body?"

What happens?

Friends.. I don't have the fullness of an answer... I have more questions these days then I have answers, and my Berean counterparts are cheering me on from their heavenly perspective as the great cloud of witnesses.  Search it out.. Search it out.. Holy Spirit will lead you .. How will your discernment grow if you never try and taste and touch?  I am not saying touch a red hot oven... But I am saying eat your Cherimoya. Don't know what that is?  Neither did I!

Or put in a different way; Do you like green eggs and ham?

You might find out you don't.

BUT

You might find that you do...

You might find life in the old hymnal

You might find life in praying the Anima Christa

You might find beauty in practices of old that have been forgotten...

You might enjoy them.. Sam I am..
You might just fall in love with the Gentle Lamb
                                   all over again and again and again....

Perfect love casts out all fear...

My God is more capable of leading me into all truth then the enemy is able to deceive me and lead me astray...

OH What LIFE erupts..
What hope
What joy
What peace
What patience
What kindness
What gentleness

It is the fruit of trusting and believing and it is the glorious melodies of creation combining with the sons and daughters of God being revealed....

So now.. Now I explore the other songs of my Father's heart.  The richness found in Anglican voices, the beauty found in Catholic brothers and sisters, the delight found in the Lutheran, the Episcopalian, the Methodist, the Presbyterian...  The hand can not say to the foot that it isn't needed... Our voices carry with them the echos of those that have walked before and if we can learn something from one another then we must endeavor to try...

Christ is coming back for A (ONE) Bride....  The power of Unity and agreement and it's invitation is going out...

How do you know if you do or don't like green eggs and ham if you won't try it?
In my reaching beyond charismatic boundaries I am building bridges and bonds that are forming me delightfully more into His image and I am exceedingly glad!

So for now as the song, Oceans, plays I am trusting and being led across waters I haven't necessarily known before.  They are Christ waters, they are waters of truth... but they are fluid and not static...  I know not the journey but I am asking to be led by Him, whose job it is to lead me into all truth.  Asking for bread I will not be given a stone. Perfect love is casting out fear and oh, by the way Cherimoya is truly yummy!