the Lord who goes before you...

Today, we are hitting the rewind button to about a year ago...
(for those of you old enough to remember, I truly hope you can hear the sound of a cassette tape rewinding in your head right now)

God started to put the city of Boston on my heart in the middle of last year. That's such a "churchy" sounding statement. But hopefully by the time you read through the sequence of events, you'll see what I mean.

Thankfully, He knows me and my tendency toward both obliviousness and stubbornness. He was patient and persistent.

Here is Part One of the timeline that led to writing this blog...

In April 2015, unbeknownst to me, two pastors from my church traveled to Boston and ultimately decided that we would support multiple church plants in the greater Boston area.

It is the Lord who goes before you... -Deuteronomy 31:8

June 8, 2015 I created a note in Evernote (my organizational lifeline) about taking Coleman to the Boston area for a Red Sox game. I had read an article about the adorable town of Rockport, Mass and I thought we needed to go there. (This still holds true as a fantabulous idea that I may pursue.)

June 21, 2015 was a Sunday. That morning before church, I wrote a prayer about seeing God's will:

"I pray that you show me your will and give me the strength to see it, act on it, follow you through even if it is tough or illogical to me."

That morning in church, we had a guest speaker... Chad Hardis. He is the pastor that is planting South Coast Community Church in Dartmouth, Mass. (Spoiler alert: THAT is the church where I will be serving at the end of this month).

For the next couple of months, it was a ambush of Boston references. My sister went to Boston. My boss went to Boston. A friend from high school with whom I'd recently reconnected went to Boston.

In mid-August,  our d-group (or small group) met and there were only three of us - an unusually small group for our "small group". I found the courage to fess up that I knew something was going on with Boston even though I had no idea what.

A few days later, I wrote the first of specific prayers, asking God to show me what He has in store for me in relation to that area.

My d-group leader, Emily, became my go-to person that I would text when random Boston references would happen. (Lucky her.)   Little things like Groupon e-mails and side conversations pointing to that one city. She'd give me the side smirk on Sunday mornings when they'd give yet another update on the church plants we were supporting...

I think I started the Boston notebook sometime in August or early September.

I grabbed an old partially-used MLB notebook that belonged to my son, Coleman.
(MLB >> Red Sox >> Boston... get it? It makes sense, right?)

Anyway...I just had the need to start getting stuff on paper (which is my "safe place" when my brain can't handle everything going on up there).



I wonder... when I meet the Hardis family in a few weeks, will they think it's weird that I have a printed picture of their family???

In reading, Go Outside, I chuckled at this:

Going Outside often starts small - a desire for change, a crazy concept or a pesky idea that doesn't go away. 

That is exactly what Boston had become... a pesky idea that wouldn't go away.

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Prayer Prompt: 

For the greater Boston area which is considered just as "unreached" by Christianity as many foreign lands.