When the Words don't come...

"There is no wisdom, no plan,
no insight that can succeed against the Lord."
-Proverbs 21:30

Regardless of what other have done or try to do, do not worry.  Our Creator has you in the palm of His hand.  He has you covered and He always wins.

 Yesterday was my first time to visit Watermark church as a prospective member.  I have visited before with close friend when I have come into Dallas (back when I lived in Tyler), but when I moved to Dallas I knew where I wanted to go to church.  Key word in that sentence being "I".  My friend Jonathan took me to The Village church in Highland Village a couple years back.  I had rode along with him to a small town called Justin to help him pick up a vintage mustang he was buying and visited his old church with him.  And WOW, I was blown away at the Pastor.  You see Matt Chandler is a very honest and open pastor.  He admits his mistakes to his congregation, is a great story teller, and just has this awesome way of relating the lessons in the Bible to our daily lives.  So I have been attending The Village since I moved back in September.  And as most of you know, in late November, early December Chandler was diagnosed with a form of Stage 3 brain cancer.  If you have not yet, please read Eric Gorski's AP article on the Chandler family entitled, Suffering Well: Faith Tested by Pastor's Cancer.  I have tried twice to enroll in the membership class, only for the class to be completely full both times.. So I started praying about where God wanted me to be a member at.  I know that church is not just about the pastor.  You have to belong to a church that also gives you community and a chance to have people your age, around you that encourage you to grow in your spiritual walk. 

       [Side Bar about Matt that was not included in the article:

I met Matt Chandler in the “green room” backstage at The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas. He was one month removed from brain surgery. It was the first Sunday he would be back on stage - although not preaching. He wasn’t sure whether he was strong enough, so that day he was just doing the introductions.

“I’m just now to where I don’t feel my brain move,” he said.

We talked for a few minutes, introductory stuff.

Then Chandler walked out on stage to a standing ovation.

“Everybody have a seat,” he said. “Let’s chat.”

The Village Church is a Southern Baptist church in prim and proper Dallas, but you couldn’t tell it. The staff has an easy time picking out visitors - they’re the ones who are dressed too nicely. Jeans are the norm, and the congregation’s average age is in the mid 30s. The church has three campuses, but the main one is here, in a newly renovated former grocery store in a suburban shopping center.

“God, you are good and glorious and gracious,” Chandler tells the church. “Help us. Church can get routine. We’re in the Bible Belt. Dallas, Texas. It’s get up in the morning, get dressed, get the kids fed, get to church. Save us from that. Save us from that monotony.”

I didn’t know much about Chandler when word started spreading online that he’d suffered a seizure on Thanksgiving, leading to the discovery of a mass on his right frontal lobe. I learned about that on Twitter. I was following Chandler, along with other pastors who belong to Acts 29, a network of evangelical pastors who are Reformed, or Calvinist, in their theology.

I contacted the church about a possible story after Chandler had undergone brain surgery but before his prognosis was clear. The story was sad and powerful. Here was a guy who was so young, just 35, with a wife and young children - someone who by his own admission had lived a charmed life. He was a rising star in evangelical Christianity, someone to watch. How would he handle this trial? If Chandler truly believed what he believed - that God is good and ultimately in control - than he should be comforted. But it’s one thing to talk about that as a concept, and another to live it facing a fatal disease - and do it in front of a large audience.

After Chandler gave that introduction in his return to church, he gave me an hour of his time back in the green room. Then he let me hang out with him the rest of the day, and all of the next day. The result is “Suffering Well,” which moved on the AP wire Sunday.

Some things I saw that didn’t make the piece: Chandler chews sugar-free gum because radiation dries out the mouth, a tip he picked up from other cancer patients. On the way out of Baylor University Medical Center after radiation, Chandler walks past a gift shop that sells wigs and hats. Before Chandler lost his hair to radiation, he had a missing patch on the back of his head the size of a postage stamp where he was burned by a coil during the surgery.

The Chandlers could have retreated, but chose to suffer publicly.

“A phrase Matt has used a couple of times is not ‘wasting’ the opportunity,” said Brian Miller, chairman of the church’s board of elders “… I think that’s kind of a unique way to look at something we normally look at as very unsettling. There isn’t fear, there isn’t any sense that God has turned his back on Matt.”

There have been moments of levity, of brightness, too. One of Chandler’s best friends, worship pastor Michael Bleecker, was sitting at dinner when he got a text from Chandler: “I lobe you.” The guy with terminal brain cancer was joking about his frontal lobe. “Those kinds of things, they encourage my heart,” Bleecker said. “Because he’s not internally going, ‘Oh, what’s going to happen.’ He is attacking this thing. He is advancing. He is not shrinking back.”

While we drove one of the endless ribbons of highway around Dallas, past the water towers and church steeples and Chuck E Cheese restaurants, Chandler talked about Thanksgiving as the day God saved his life. Think about it, he said. What if he didn’t have the seizure? What if the tumor had kept growing for a couple more years, into an inoperable part of the brain?

“Let’s say this goes really bad for me. Most people are not going to get what I am going to get - which is a year, two, five, 10, 12 … to fight. And to spend time with my children and to understand that each day really is a gift. What are the statistics? That 150,000 people in the United States are going to die today? And they’re going to die in car wrecks, of brain aneurysms. Most of them are going to die instantaneously. They don’t get to lay in bed with their wives, like I’ve gotten to for the last month and say what I want to say to her. To kiss my children. To drink it in really deeply, all of that. It’s carpe diem on steroids, all of a sudden. That really is a gift.”]

On the other hand, I go to "The Porch" at Watermark on Tuesdays for young adults.  I have made SO many amazing friends through that church.  And re-kindled old friendships.  Tuesdays have become one of the greatest nights of my life because of it.  But so have my weekends.. The past 4 weeks I have spent almost the entire time with my Watermark friends.  I'm able to go out with them and have an honest to goodness GREAT time and I'm able to do it with other people my age who love the Lord.  So let's weekend when I finally heard God tell me it's time to change your church, I listened...  Last weekend I went to the Village with two of my friends who don't normally attend church on a weekly basis and had a chance to see Matt give his announcements and Lauren sing on the praise team.  It was a great church service with a visiting pastor from Philadelphia.  And then yesterday I went to Watermark.  And of course, my first time to visit as a prospective member Todd is not speaking, but it was still a GREAT service thanks to Blake Holmes.

But I was touched right off the bat by Patrick Clark, the Worship Director.  He wanted to share with us what he and his wife have been going through lately.  About 12 weeks ago he informed the church that his mother-in-law, Karen had been diagnosed with brain cancer.  And they were going to start chemotherapy.  They tried chemotherapy for a set amount of time and then let Karen taking a break, ran some tests to see how the cancer had reacted and then they would decide the next step... This past week the Clarks got a call from Karen and the chemo didn't work, in fact, the cancer had gotten larger.  My heart sank.. tears filled my eyes..  Matt Chandler's MRI had should the chemo and radiation had worked, but the doctors had also decided that they would have to extend the duration of the treatment to ensure the best chance for Chandler to beat it.  They have also increased his chemo dose for this next round which started last night...  But Karen's had gotten worse?  I have no idea if Karen has the same type of cancer as Matt.. I do not know if she also had radiation on top of the chemo like Matt.  As Chandler said, "so many different variables play into cancer and how it reacts or doesn't.. God controls them all though." Isn't that so true?  And the Clark's they are okay with that.  He and his wife know that God has a plan and that it is greater than either of theirs..  Patrick noted how hard it is on him to not be able to "fix it" but that he knows God is up there preparing this Amazing place for Karen.. And I think he is right..

"Fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise; things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, honorable."
- Philippians 4:8

 

Your mind is the gateway to everything your future holds.  What you experience tomorrow largely depends upon what you are filling yourself up with today.  Be aware of the snowball effect of negative thinking and make a commitment to focus on the things that will keep you properly focused.


AND I am signed up for the Watermark Membership Classes in April so whoo hoo!!