I (Maria) love our Sunday School class!

We are attending this great Sunday school class at South Canyon Baptist here in Rapid City and it would be an understatement to say that I like going. No, it's pretty much the greatest part of my week. I look forward to every Sunday morning, and not just because they always have sprinkled donuts sitting out (just for the record, there is no other donut worth eating). I love having fellowship with other young married couples, and I love just simply watching the couple who lead it. Tom and Dee are the most energetic people I have ever met, hands down, and sometimes I forget to listen to what they are saying about the lesson because I am caught up in observing how they finish each others' sentences, how they transition so well from one thought to another with both of them talking, as if they were sharing a brain and the same train of thought, and how much their faces light up when they talk about God, which is all the time. I find myself so totally caught up in their excitement that I feel as if I actually lived with them and was present through all the stories they share about their lives. I find myself asking every Sunday, "How can I have a walk like that? How can I have the kind of relationship they each have with their Savior? And how can I have a marriage like that, so centered on Him and so obviously grounded in His Word and in His truths?"

Those seem like such simple, harmless questions, but they're really not. Not because the answer is difficult to sift out or because they require in-depth theological study to understand, but because they are the kinds of questions non-believers are supposed to be asking about believers, not believers asking about other believers. In my asking, I came to realize my own sad state of Faith.

This week was, in a way, I think, a turning point for me. I had some serious misconceptions about marriage, about Faith manifesting itself in marriage, and about plain old walking with the Lord that I had cleared up for me (thanks, Dee, even though you will probably never read this), and I feel like I got a jump-start (or maybe a shove in the right direction is more like it) on getting back to where I need to be...at His feet. I have long been hearing Him whisper my name, asking me to come and lay it all down, to come and rest, to come and just be still, but I kept finding other ways to try to clear the confusion and ease the pain. The world is so good at offering band-aids of various types. But I need healing, not bandaging. Lord, I am ready now. I come.