sundresses

I love Sundays in the Spring in Knoxville.  There’s a warming feeling when you’re driving down the road with the sunroof open, sundress on, and church bells ringing.  Feeling the sun on your shoulders, seeing the happy people come out of church and rush to the local restaurants.  I was brought up in a home where we went to church every Sunday, no matter what.  I’m thankful my mother raised me that way.  God calls us to keep the Sabbath Day holy, and I’m thankful it was instilled in me to keep that as a priority.  It’s easy to make excuses not to go in this time in our lives.  We have so much to do, so little time in the day.  There’s so many new experiences to explore.  I remember my Freshman year outside of North Carrick Hall one Sunday morning, a friend of mine, Ben, saw me with my sundress on walking to my car with my Bible in hand.  He came and gave me a hug.  He said he felt encouraged by seeing me do that.  He told me a statistic of more than 70% of collegiate students losing or straying away from their faith or regular involvement in a church in college.  

And I thought to myself, “Wow, how discouraging.”  I, then, realized we often have this mind set.  We are more likely to look for the discouraging parts of faith than the encouraging.  We focus on the times we feel like God has failed us or someone else than look at the abundance of times He has blessed our lives and other’s.  I joined my sorority chapter because it was based on Christian ideals, and I knew those were the sisters that would come to church with me.  A year into it, things had changed.  Everyone got schooled.  College life had taken over.  And I was, all of the sudden, driving solo to church.  I started to ask other girls in other chapters to ride with me to church, girls in chapters with not so great reputations.  I found myself sitting in my seat at church worried more that my friends weren’t with me than rejoicing that the girls that I had brought with me had come! One of my biggest burdens if for the Church.  And as I grow older I realize how many times as Christians we can have a negative attitude about the Church.  How can we expect people to feel encouraged by coming to church and having that same warming feeling on Sunday mornings, if we are focused on the discouraging ourselves?