A place to be.

As I look at the photos, hitting next again and again, tears roll down my face and I realize how much I miss this.

I remember when I first walked into this place on a sunny afternoon around 1pm. It didn't appear anything like what I was looking for. The only thing that made me feel that I was in the correct address was the CROSS outside... It was dusty and little dark inside..  I look to the left and the right trying to make an eye contact with someone who can answer my questions. Then I look straight to this huge person, I hesitated a little, but he smiled at me looking straight into my eyes. I walked directly to him with half a smile on my face.

Me: 'Hi'
He: 'Hi'
Me: 'Bethel AG?'.
He: 'Yes, I'm Ps.Danny'.
Me: 'Service?' (What is a service? That is what I was told by my friend to ask in the church for mass time)
He: 'Oh! Its over. Here is the card and the service timings are on it' again with a big smile giving me more details on the service.
Me: 'Ok, Thank You!' I didn't want to talk anymore. I'm  not like the ones who are confident to ask lot of questions in the first meeting.
I looked around to see if there are some benches like the ones in Catholic churches so that I could kneel and prayer a while, but all the chairs were stacked and  someone was cleaning the place. I walked out to the sunny ground. Didn't know what to do. Was this the place I was looking for?

Rode back to home, didn't know what to do next. However next sunday I was there for Kannada service. Few Sundays I attended the Kannada service. Then one day I moved to English service, they asked the new comers to stand and I did. They asked us to move out to a particular area where this beautiful lady met me and 2 more girls. We gave a brief on our background and prayer request and she prayed for us individually. I don't remember what was my prayer request but when she prayed for me, I couldn't stop crying. When I left the place didn't know what I felt..... Fast forward few years... I joined bible study... few years later was volunteering in church, made so many friends.. Not the kind who would say hi-bye or wish you once in a year on your birthday, but the kind who knelt and prayed and cried for you. Made me a part of their daily prayer life.

The place which I wasn't sure was the right place for me, made space for a person like me. They prayed, inspired and loved me. A pastor( Pastor in charge) who taught the word- as is, he understands you even before you say a word, a worship team who taught me to raise hands, to kneel and cry before God, Pastors who dealt with me personally, helped me in the study of the word, who guided me, friends who laughed, cried and loved me. God found this place for me which provided everything that I needed and much more.

Now as I look through the photos in the church website, I see hundreds of people, raising hands, kneeling, crying, laughing and worshiping the GOD ALMIGHTY. This place has place for every sinner.. tattooed or  clean washed up body, covering your head or with fancy hairdo, with lipstick or sweaty shirts, in jeans or saree, in high heels or with a cane... God did not come to save the righteous but the sinners... And this place welcomes you with the same attitude. God is working on each individual, shaping, crafting and transforming them to be more like Christ. This church helps you reach that final stage.

I know each one who has been a part of this church will call it a place of worship- HOME.

Bethel AG, I miss you!

Dec 20, 2013

Dec 20, 2013....

We all know what it is to have a routine.. You already know how your day would go tomorrow . I don't mean you know the future, it just means you have a set of tasks that you would want to or have to do tomorrow. This certainty gives comfort to a lot of people. Certainity on atleast 80% of things that would happen tomorrow, certain of what you would face or have to handle tomorrow. Knowing this makes your mind be prepared for tomorrow which helps you to stay calm today. Say this certainty is taken out of your life, you don't know what will happen tomorrow, that means you are taken out of your routine and all of a sudden  it is new set of task you need to handle on the go. Like a trip? Trip is exciting, you know the purpose of the trip is to have fun, so your mind is excited (not panicking) and ready for it. Let's say you are taken out of your bed and all of a sudden you are in war- front line.. first thing your brain does is to panic a little then try to understand where you are and then what to do. Since most of us untrained to handle a gun or whatever you are handling, your brain is in emergency mode, lot of adrenaline in your body and now you just know the aim is to stay alive. Your brain wont reach a stage where you know aim is just not to stay alive but also kill. By the time the day is over your brain is on a grill. Now lets take a realistic example, when we all stepped up from college and got into one of those jobs, though we knew this is what we wanted, this is what the right thing is, all your life you have worked for it, but the first day in office is a weird one.. why weird? Well when you actually mix happy, panic, scared, want a little bit of your yesterday life, whatever that feeling is called, it just becomes weird. You cant actually smile, you cant scream and run and you know you have worked for this very day and you should not be going back. So again your brain shoots many questions in rapid fire and tries to answer them all though answers won't be convincing. I assume that's what most people feel on the important days. But me I feel BLANK. I have talked about this blank before.

During all my life changing, important days, I feel BLANK. The day I was travelling to BBSR for my training - BLANK, the last working day in Infy- BLANK and the day I'm travelling to get married -BLANK. When I say blank I mean normal, as in the way I feel on any day with routine, which is abnormal to this situation. Shouldn't I be excited? or scared? or atleast worried? But none of these.

I got married on Dec 20, 2013. I had waited for this day for years. Well most girls dream of their wedding day since their teenage. We keep adding things which we wish happen on that day or to the life thereafter. We wish and expect a perfect wedding, a perfect partner and a perfect thereafter. Mine was also the same, may be a little filmy. But like every other girl I wished for many ideal things. When decision about the actual wedding were taken I knew most of it is not what I dreamed off. Every decision pulled and forced me to think practical. I wasn't happy about it. I was to give up on many things that I desired. On the day of the wedding I wake up as usual and I know the things I need to do, so I do. Dress up and show up. Everyone around me gave me a very different smile. my own family was smiling at me in a way which I have not seen for 27 years. Their questions are different, the way they talk is different. My friends showed up to the room that morning and the guys also smiled at me very differently. But having my girl friends there and talking to them, that is the only thing which felt normal. Rest of them behaved differently.

I dressed up and showed up at the venue. Made it through the whole wedding ceremony and next 1 week in R's house with the in laws successfully. Though I was meeting R's family for the first time, though I was in a state which speaks completely different language, though my family was not around, everyday felt just normal. Not even a single bit of this wedding or the life after that till today has any resemblance to my dream, but it felt REAL and comfortable. I'm not perfect nor is R neither are people or situations around us. We do not understand each other, we don't like same things and we have different opinion on every single thing. But on the other side of the coin we have our laughs, we both are trying to love each other, we both are trying to understand and we both have same basic beliefs. I pray and kind of know that our life will have most of the flip results with the latter side coin up. My heart was not scared or excited on the wedding day, but was calm and it still is. May be that is what is important, not the decorations, cake or dress that needs to be perfect, it is your soul, your heart. If you look through the photos you will find me smiling almost in all situations, whether my parents were happy or not, whether my in laws were happy or not, even if R was happy or not it somehow didn't affect me. I was calm and happy.

Since I'm writing about my marriage I thought of mentioning one of the special moments. There were so many little moments which brought me to reality as to what Dec 20, 2013 meant. Among the several here is 1 - when I was sitting in the hotel room in front of a mirror with beautician  trying her best to make me look beautiful, my mom walks in every few mins to look at me through the mirror, we have eye contact and then she smiles. There were so many details I had dreamt of for my wedding, but not that smile. That smile meant so many things, I felt mom was saying so many things through that smile and for that smile I can't thank God enough.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 - 'He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.'