Written 4/23/13:
Tonight was the last TNT (Tuesday Night Together) at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry (BCM) on ISU's campus. The BCM is a mostly student-led organization that meets in an old house on the edge of ISU's campus here in Terre Haute. Each week, students from all the area colleges gather for a time of praise and worship, sharing, praying, and a message. Other times during the week there are Bible studies, and all kinds of events take place throughout the school year. Roger and Rose Bear oversee it all and inspire/encourage the students.
Standing in the presence of friends tonight, singing, listening to messages through song, skits, and testimony - and watching people get pied in the face to raise money for summer missions, I am reminded of why I so deeply love this place and these people. And what an unbelievable undeserved blessing Christ has bestowed on me by allowing me to be here. This place has been my lilly pad for almost 4 years now. Let me explain:
Author Anne Lamott describes her journey to faith in her book "Traveling Mercies" like this:
"My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lilly pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear. When I look back at some of these early resting places . . . I can see how flimsy and indirect a path they made. Yet each step brought me closer to the verdant pad of faith on which I somehow stay afloat today."
I feel like our journey once we come to faith is like that too, at least it has been for me. Jumping from lilly pad to lilly pad. Sometimes I fall off, sometimes I barely hang on, sometimes they slip from underneath me and I plunge head-first into the water. I could tell my whole faith journey using this lilly pads motif, but tonight I want to focus on just one. This one has comforted me, built me up, and helped me grow in ways I never dreamed possible. (Even though it took some nudging to get me to jump to it.)
That lilly pad is BCM.
I first heard about it from some guys at my church. They kept begging me to go, but since I went to school 3 hours away, I didn't see the point. (going there for one night, then vanishing for a couple months before I'd be able to go back again). When I moved home after graduation and took a job in town, I finally worked up the courage to try it out. At first it was awkward - Andrew and Isaac were the only people I knew. But the music was great, and it reminded me of my chapels back up in Huntington. I kept going back, and before long it became a second home.
Over the last four years, I have made so many friends, found a mentor in Roger, found a passion for leading worship with the travel team (and a passion for finding new ways to express music in worship). Rose and the summer missionaries inspire me with their service mindedness. They are both holy and hilarious, these Christ filled people. And cool enough to not care that there's a 26-year-old in there midst that already finished what they're in the middle of.
There's a Christa Wells song called "You've Got a Home" that I love. I'm not entirely sure what Christa was actually getting at when she wrote this song, but for me, it will always and forevermore remind of the BCM. Here are the lyrics:
"Mountains melt into valleys and
you suddenly find yourself in shadowlands
where all of life seems out of your hands
don't think you've got no one left
Here's the key to my front door
I got a pillow if you lost yours
you got a seat at my table
you've got a home
Here's somebody who believes you
Let truth remind you
you've always got a place to go to
you've got a home
Rain has come for all of us
pours out a different tune for everyone
there's rhythm and rhyme inside the dissonance
we'll listen for it side by side
Here's the key to my front door
I got a pillow if you lost yours
you got a seat at my table
you've got a home
Here's somebody who believes you
Let truth remind you
you've always got a place to go to
you've got a home"
~ lyrics from "You've Got a Home" by Christa Wells, from the album 'Frame the Clouds'
Every word of that embodies the BCM. I know that no matter what I've got a home with these people, at this place. It was a lilly pad I struggled onto and found shelter on. For the first time in my life, I feel like I'm preparing to jump. I can feel the lilly pad shifting under me. I'm scared to death - I have no idea where the next pad is. but I feel like I'm being prepared to leave. I don't know if I'll get another year here, but I intend to enjoy it as long as I'm here. And I know when I do leave, it's always a safe place I can return to. And people who will be with me and cheer me on even after I'm gone.
