Sunday, June 25, 2006

Interesting

Last night I went to the Sidney Emmaus candlelight ceremony to encourage someone from my church. First of all, you might know that I didn't have a great experience on my Emmaus weekend, largely because I was unable to sleep the entire first night. In fact, I probably slept a grand total of 2 hours that night (I know, we were on "God's time" but when you're awake all night long in a church, you find uncovered clocks). And when I don't sleep, I'm grumpy, depressed, and, well, a little more sensitive than usual. So when the guys at my table didn't listen much to me because I was significantly younger than they were, that just made the week not-so-great. That aside, the candlelight ceremony was great.

As an aside, even though I personally didn't have a great time on my Emmaus weekend, I am a firm believer in the movement. I have seen way too many people whose lives have been changed and who have realized God's wonderful love for them and His awesome plan for their lives and who have begun to live into it because of the Emmaus/Chrysalis retreats. It maybe wasn't my thing at that time, but so what...

So anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, I was at Emmaus. The cool thing was that I actually ran into people I knew; some were from my Bible study in Wapak, but another was a soccer buddy from Kentucky! It was really weird, because I didn't know that she even lived in Ohio. What was even weirder was that I found out that she and her husband have a 2 year old and are in the process of adoption!

On our way home from Candlelight, we were joking that we had done our church quota, so we shouldn't have to go on Sunday morning. After all, we'd sung, we'd fellowshipped, and we'd celebrated Communion. What more do you need?

But then, when I made it to church this morning, almost all of the members of our church who had been there last night were already there... I guess maybe we figured out that we need church most of all!!!!

4 comments:

muzik said...

What is this ceremony??? I've never heard of it before. I guess the other question is what denomination is it associated with?

muzik said...

United Methodist???

'neice said...

My Walk was pretty nifty. I worked one Walk several years ago and then had to drop out of another because I got too sick (ED stuff).

Anonymous said...

Just curious, what walk number (or date) did you attend??? I appreciate your story and your honesty here...