this was the place where I’d realized that I loved You…

I was 9 years old and my grandmother, a very smart woman, never thought that being one of Jehovah’s Witnesses was being a real Christian and wanted me to be save and get a taste of God as she knew him. So on one of the many Saturdays that I spent the night. Instead of going to the library as we usually would, we went across the street to Doan Elementary.

Doan was the church that I went to before bussing which I hated because I loved that school. Unlike my new school, Charles Orr (yes, after the Socialist) Doan was old construction, with crown moldings, heavy wood doors, pillars and those acoustic tiles that went ‘pop’ when you ran your hands across them really fast.

But that wasn’t what I loved about it. And it wasn’t the fact that there was a band there, which is always my favorite part of worship. I knew that God was here in a way that I never felt at the Kingdom Hall. All the rules and field service and going to the Hall could not give me the connection to God the way reading the Bible and praying did.

Or coming here. This was the place where God was and this is where I realized that I loved God. And that His love was here.

It’s surprising what will remind you of God’s love… and that’s even before the sermon.

30 years later I found myself at an old construction school -not in inner city of my childhood- but in the middle of the small Texas town of Brenham, Tx, being met by a young boy whose smile filled up half of his face. I asked directions and found myself walking down the same halls I did then.

30 years later I find God in worship now and in a faith community that supports me. And I saw that this community here disciples of God and His love was here. I walked in the auditorium of this small school in this small Texas town and it was like I was nine again.

I was in the place where I told God that I loved Him and where I knew without a doubt that He loved me, right down to the old burgundy curtains. I have forgotten that over the years and sometimes I doubt it even now but standing in this place, listening as the pastor talks of His love for us and how we obey, not for what we get, but because of that love and how much we want to love Him.

God is HUGE. Bigger than I could ever imagine. Most days I find it impossible that He even sees me. This day…the day that He showed me that He not only loves me, but remembers the moment that we shared so many years ago… is awe inspiring and amazing.

This is the God I serve. And it is for this God that I follow the path.