Due to my hearing problems I have to sit in our church's cryroom during service (we have a room in the back that has a window and a speaker so that people can bring their crying children in there to calm them down without disrupting the service and still watch and hear the service) and I do so because the music and speakers in the sanctuary bother my ears a lot. I only come out when its time for communion.
The problem is is that it's super lonely being in there all by myself. Even though I'm worshipping with my congregation, it separates me from them at the same time. I feel like an outsider sometimes and really wish that I could go back to sitting in the sanctuary.
But God brough someone to me in that room during service today besides a mother with a weeping child or baby that needed to be fed. There is a woman in our congregation that has been attending our church for about as long as I have (I've been a part of this church since childhood) and I've never seen her as anything but a happy woman with two good children and a loving husband and someone who is good friends with our pastor's wife.
But today, near the end of the service she came in that room in tears. She apologized for coming in as she didn't know I was in there but I reassured her that she didn't have to apologize. It's a cryroom but I don't think crying is reserved just for babies. I didn't ask her what was wrong but I did offer her a hug and to sit with me for the remainder of the service. She did accept the hug and some tissues and I felt in my heart that it really helped her.
I don't know what was distressing her at the time but I do know that God did bring her to me (and to be honest I was kinda teary eyed myself in that room because the congregation and I were singing a song that has a lot of meaning for me personally) because perhaps he knew that I would have no problem readily offering comfort to someone I didn't know as well as I probably should. I understand loneliness and sorrow and pain all too well. She needed a hug in that moment and I was there to give it to her and I'm very glad for it.
And to think that i was complaining to myself that God didn't really have any use for a person like me this week.
The problem is is that it's super lonely being in there all by myself. Even though I'm worshipping with my congregation, it separates me from them at the same time. I feel like an outsider sometimes and really wish that I could go back to sitting in the sanctuary.
But God brough someone to me in that room during service today besides a mother with a weeping child or baby that needed to be fed. There is a woman in our congregation that has been attending our church for about as long as I have (I've been a part of this church since childhood) and I've never seen her as anything but a happy woman with two good children and a loving husband and someone who is good friends with our pastor's wife.
But today, near the end of the service she came in that room in tears. She apologized for coming in as she didn't know I was in there but I reassured her that she didn't have to apologize. It's a cryroom but I don't think crying is reserved just for babies. I didn't ask her what was wrong but I did offer her a hug and to sit with me for the remainder of the service. She did accept the hug and some tissues and I felt in my heart that it really helped her.
I don't know what was distressing her at the time but I do know that God did bring her to me (and to be honest I was kinda teary eyed myself in that room because the congregation and I were singing a song that has a lot of meaning for me personally) because perhaps he knew that I would have no problem readily offering comfort to someone I didn't know as well as I probably should. I understand loneliness and sorrow and pain all too well. She needed a hug in that moment and I was there to give it to her and I'm very glad for it.
And to think that i was complaining to myself that God didn't really have any use for a person like me this week.
