It’s hard to believe how God would reach down and show me that I’m not forgotten. Even though I’ve been overly tired and grumpy this weekend, He doesn’t cancel me for my less than stellar attitude.

This morning we hopped on the internet for our church service, but due to some uploading issues, we decided to search for our old church pastor Mike Macintosh in San Diego, Horizon Christian Fellowship. Since he retired from full-time pastoring a few years back, I didn’t know if we’d find any recent sermons from him. But he had a few new ones.

We were so immensely blessed to be a part of that church in San Diego, and the way God led us shows how God can use any place and situation. We had just moved in together as a married couple to San Diego (me from nyc and Chris from Santa Cruz) living apart for 6 months after our wedding, lots of and it was hard to adjust to a new way of life. I was still a long-distance student working on my dissertation where I spent most days laboring over reading and writing that made no progress and bemoaning the prospect that I may never finish nor graduate. All that time, money, efforts, dreams would be wasted and not finishing would be dismal.

Sometimes I’d accompany Chris to his post grad lab at UCSD and go to the library to write, but it was too distracting. We were newlyweds so I would just stare at my watch and count the hours till Chris would come get me at the library. lol. And I wanted to be sure that my lipstick was fresh and hair just right. My gosh, such vanity at the time.

Lots of small coffee shops in San Diego and an abundance of Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf cafes. I’d park myself at a corner table at Coffee Bean and work for hours wondering when I’ll ever be done with this drudgery and move on with my life. This is also the place where one afternoon, two random guys snatched my purse and threw it on the side of the street without my wallet and phone inside. I later found out that another lady got mugged in that parking area a few days later.

However, at that Coffee Bean site one afternoon, a small group of young adults showed up with their Bibles and got into a lively discussion about life and catching up with each other. They seemed like a nice group of people and the genuine regard they had for each other interested me. When you’re desperate for community, you don’t care about etiquette; I butted in asking what they were studying, and they handed me a postcard flyer of their church and invited me to their church; they said this church was 2 blocks away from where we were. That was all it took. Chris and I were there the following Sunday and we never looked back.

I apologize for digressing so much in this post. The point of my post today is that the sermon was on Psalm 139 and that’s been a Psalm that I’ve been trying to memorize. Chris and I are listening to the sermon and when I open my Bible, the pencil that I left in the book is at Psalm 139. It was so odd that I got all huffy puffed and explained to Chris that it was not a planned thing on my part. I don’t know why I assumed he wouldn’t believe me, but he nodded in agreement. (This reserved guy. I would’ve appreciated some verbal affirmation but he just smiled and looked away).

God stoops down to meet me in these small ways. Thanks God! These small signs are wonderful for me; I am not seen and known by Him.

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend and take care! Thank you for reading and taking the time to be here.

Categories: church

Tagged as: God is personal Horizon Christian Fellowship Mike Macintosh nostalgia San Diego days

singlikewildflowers

Welcome to my blog! My name is Esther and I'm so happy you are here. I'm an avid nature photographer and a daydreaming thinker. My posts revolve around photos of nature's beauty, homeschooling adventures with my 2 kids, sporadic reflections on my child's heart condition, Bible reading reflections, gardening feats, and other mish mash things. Hopefully you'll leave encouraged, pensive, or smiling at the simple things of life. Thank you for stopping by and hope you'll find some interesting posts to read!