God Infuses Everything

When I was with my last girlfriend, we spent Sunday’s together.  We went to church, made brunch, cleaned up, rested, went on hikes with her great boys.  Those days are gone for now.  As I recover from this sadly broken relationship, I find Sundays hard.  Lonely.  Not worshipping with the one I loved.  Not hanging out and relaxing and having fun together.  But I turned the corner on this day.  I have started rituals that are beginning to sustain me each Sabbath. 

I don’t view Sunday church as the core of my faith, like our culture in wont to do.  But I still go nonetheless.  It’s a time to worship together and connect with friends.  I have started going to two churches, ironically.  My longtime church at 9am, and another in a more rural area also close to my home at 11.  Both have very different flavors.  Both encourage me in crucial ways during this hard season of life. 

I left both services uplifted.  God was in the conversations.  A new person I met encouraged me in an unexpected way without knowing much of me.  God does know what He is doing.

After the second service, I went out to eat at a Hawaiian family restaraunt in the nearby town of Duvall.  I walk into this joint, and my order is practically already sizzling in the kitchen.  I am in with the waitress.  They anticipate my need.  I love them.

During the week, I eat rather healthily and try to workout.  On Sundays, I eat what I want.  If I feel like eating a cube of lard, why that’s what I do.  And my new Sunday culinary tradition is have chicken fried steak with homemade sausage gravy, eggs, and hash browns.  Dang!  Great stuff.  My arteries are still quivering.

Then it was back home for a two hour nap.  My other six days are tough lately, so I catch up on my sleep. 

After that, it was a long walk on the Snoqualmie River Trail.  I ended up sitting along the recently flooded, brown river praying and visualizing my answered prayers.  Suddenly, my mind was swirling with lust.  Not specific things mind you.  Just profound spiritual distraction.  I could not bring myself to persist in my prayers.  And I walked off.  The enemy won this time, and I was kinda ticked.  So I drove.  And drove.

Many of the roads in this part of the valley are curvaceous and well-suited to a 340 HP car with a sport suspension.  Let’s just say I put the hammer down.  Sunroof open.  King’s X crunching my synapses across the stereo system.   There could not have been a better combination of stimuli at this time.  My senses cleared of the spiritual detritus that had plagued my earlier prayers.

Wouldn’t you know it, I went straight up the valley and ended up in lovely Monroe (See map).  I had no goal, no destination.  Only the sun setting on my left side, filling the valley with golden hues.  It was cathartic. 

Today, Sunday was good.  I was encouraged — by people, by worship, by food, by God’s creation, and by some speed.  God does infuse everything, if you let Him.