Let me draw you back. Back to when it was real. Back to when walking into that room felt like walking into something holy. Back to when worship was not a song but a surrender, and you could feel the weight of it in your chest.
Psalm 84:1-2You remember, do you not? The music. Not the performance kind, but the kind where people were singing like their lives depended on it. Like they had finally found the thing they had been searching for all along.
Psalm 95:1-2Let me draw you back
Back to when it was real. Back to when walking into that room felt like walking into something holy. Back to when worship was not a song but a surrender, and you could feel the weight of it in your chest.
You remember, do you not? The music. Not the performance kind, but the kind where people were singing like their lives depended on it. Like they had finally found the thing they had been searching for all along. And maybe you had. Maybe that was the first time you felt like God was not distant and silent but close and speaking and alive.
That is what we loved. Not the production. Not the lights. The aliveness. The sense that something was happening and you were part of it. That you were not alone in your faith anymore. That there were others who were hungry the same way you were hungry.
The hunger that drew us in
Most of us did not come because we were looking for a movement. We came because we were looking for God. And we had been looking in all the wrong places. We had been to churches where everything was polite and predictable and safe, and we were starving. Not for entertainment. For presence. For something that felt like it could change us.
And then we found it. In a conference. In a worship night. In a small group where someone was finally honest about what they were struggling with. In a prayer meeting where people were praying with their whole bodies, not just their minds. In a moment when someone prophesied and you felt seen in a way you had never felt seen before.
That was what we loved. The permission to want more. The permission to believe that God was not finished. That He was not distant but intimate. That He was not silent but speaking. That the Holy Spirit was not a theological concept but a person you could know.
The expectation that made it feel real
There was something else too. Expectation. We expected God to show up. We expected things to happen. We expected to be changed. And that expectation was not arrogance. It was faith. It was the belief that the same God who moved in the book of Acts still moves today.
We were not satisfied with a faith that was comfortable. We wanted the dangerous kind. The kind where you did not know what was going to happen when you walked into the room. The kind where you might speak in a tongue and not know what you were saying. The kind where you might get healed and not know how. The kind where God might speak and it might not sound like what you expected.
That expectation was what made it feel real. Not the teaching, though the teaching mattered. Not the music, though the music mattered. The expectation. The belief that God was actually there and actually doing something and we were actually part of it.
The community that felt like family
And then there was the community. For many of us, it was the first time faith felt like belonging. Not like a club or a religion or a performance. Like family. Like people who knew you and loved you and were not going to let you stay where you were.
People who would pray for you when you were struggling. People who would speak truth to you when you were drifting. People who would celebrate with you when God moved and grieve with you when He did not. People who made you feel like you were part of something bigger than yourself.
That is what we loved. The family. The belonging. The sense that you were not alone in your faith anymore.
What we are allowed to grieve
Here is what I want you to know. All of that was real. All of that mattered. And you are allowed to grieve it. You are allowed to miss what it was before it got complicated. You are allowed to remember what drew us in and know that it was not nothing.
The enemy wants you to think it was all a lie. The world wants you to think it was all foolish. Some of your brothers and sisters want you to think you were duped. But I am here to tell you something different.
You found God. In the middle of all that mess and all that beauty, you found God. And that was not a mistake. That was not a gimmick. That was the Holy Spirit meeting you where you were. And that remains true, no matter what happened after.
Remember What Drew You In
Write down what you loved about that time. Do not be ashamed of it. Let it be a reminder that God met you there. Remember the hunger that led you to seek Him.
- What was it about the movement that first drew me to God?
- What do I remember most vividly from that time?
- How has that experience shaped my faith journey?
- What am I allowed to grieve from that season?
- What would I say to someone who calls my experience a scam?
- How do I hold on to what was real while acknowledging what went wrong?
- What is the difference between finding God and finding a movement?
All of that was real. All of that mattered. And you are allowed to grieve it. You are allowed to miss what it was before it got complicated.
Father, thank You for meeting me when I was searching. Thank You for the movement that drew me closer to You, even though it became messy.
Help me to remember what was real, what drew me in, and not to be ashamed of the hunger that led me to You. Give me peace as I grieve what was lost, and help me to hold on to what was good.
I trust that You were there even when I did not see it. In Jesus Name, Amen.
Tomorrow, we are going to talk about something that the world does not want to hear. We are going to talk about evidence. About documented miracles and verified healings. About what is real whether the skeptics believe it or not.
But today, I just want to sit with what we loved. And grieve it. And remember that it was real.
With honesty and hope,
Claire