The In-Crowd

Thank you to Amy DeBurgh, Director of Volunteers & Guest Services, for writing today's blog.

I have never really cared about being a part of the in-crowd... until now.  About once a week, usually on a  Friday, a gang of ladies from the Catalyst program comes into my office. They are a lot of fun.  I am so amused by them.  We talk about their upcoming weekend plans and make each other laugh.  It’s that Friday feeling that everyone recognizes; the energy and smell of coming freedom.  They, like I am, are anticipating a few days off and they have a feeling the potential for friendship wackiness is high.  I get caught up in their enjoyment, and feel very welcomed there. 

These ladies are so terrific.  They have a gift that most adults don’t have.  It’s the ability to cut out the formalities and just enjoy life and each other.  It’s a fun thing to get pulled into.  All of a sudden, I have instantaneous, accepting friends.  Not just any kind of friendship is being built here.  It’s a convicting one.  Questions are thrown to me and answers are expected.  If we’re honest, we’ll admit that sometimes we catch and throw the fast-pitch “How are you?” and we don’t really take time to give or get the answer.  That kind of indifference is missing from these ladies.  They ask.  They look at me.  They wait for the answer.  They respond.  And I think I want to be more like that.

Hurts, joys, thoughts about God, triumphant achievements, perturbations, are all readily available.  My girls can’t be fake.  Honesty defines them.  How refreshing.  A conversation about the Lord is just a word away.  It’s a safe and fun place to be me.  I can tell they feel that way about each other too.  They share in the benefits of adulthood employment, independence and freedom while maintaining the childlike faith that Christ puts immeasurable value on.

In a manner of speaking, I guess I kind of feel like part of the in-crowd now. It’s a really good in-crowd that accepts everyone.  What a special thing. 

Shepherds Ministries: A World of Potential

We would like to welcome Amy DeBurgh, Director of Volunteers and Guest Services, to the Shepherds family. Along with being a pastor's wife and the mother of three children, Amy is a gifted writer who, as time allows, will be sharing her love of God and the people of Shepherds through this blog.

It is impossible! There is really no way to explain God and how He works. The book He gave us can’t be fathomed by us.  We are too stuck on the surface for that kind of plumbing. But we send the line out anyway, and every time it comes back we know Him a little bit better.  This happens every time we study God’s word even with passages we thought we already knew.  It’s the craziest kind of satisfied hunger.  Every attempt to know God fills us up and makes us want more. That is the nature of the pursuit of the Eternal One by the earthbound.

    Life offers experiences that are especially conducive to this kind of feeling toward God.  A story of His grace, a sermon, a song or witnessing the miracle of salvation can peel back the terrestrial veil just a small amount and what we see, draws us into worship.  Sometimes its a place and an important work.  Visiting Shepherds Ministries for the first time was that for me, an inducement to worship. It was paradoxical in its understated pronouncement of God’s glory.  I saw the image of God across a new landscape. It was the same God, His same image in new personalities and faces.  

    What had I been missing in my knowledge of God that was revealed to me in this experience?  I think it was potential. 

God was before and still is the God of Omnipotential.  He was never lacking. He never changed.  It was seeing that people can be challenged to reach a greater potential than everyone around them ever expected, that was wholly unexpected to me.  I was surprised by God’s image, uncontained and untamable, smashing expectations and setting the record straight.  

He let me see, in the lives here at Shepherds, that for all my knowing, I don’t know much. It made me wonder at what He would do next.  I came to a deeper understanding that there is a world of potential inside every human image-bearer that, at the hands of the Creator, removes all doubt that with God all things are possible.