"You grow where you are committed."

This statement has held a lot of significance in my life within the past several months. My husband and I had been attending a church locally and we love every minute of it. It is definitely a spirit-filled church, the pastor is amazing, and the praise and worship is fantastic. I had been feeling that it was something I wanted to commit to, but I waited to hear from Seth on whether it was something he felt like we should do. It seems like it was only a few days and we began talking about the church and how much we loved it. We continued to talk and pray about it, and ultimately agreeing that we wanted to become a member rather than just an "attendee".

That Sunday morning (before we attended a class on membership) the pastor spoke on how much God truly does love each and every one of us. One of his illustrations was about how God knows all the sparrows that have fallen from the sky and that each of them had significant meaning. Seth and I left an amazing church sermon that morning, had lunch, and then went back to the church that afternoon to attend the membership class and speak with an elder. Everything just felt "right" and we both knew that becoming committed to the church was what God wanted us to do.

To tie together the illustration and our new commitment, I was standing outside watering the flowers on Monday evening and noticed that there was a dead bird right next to the porch. I did not know what kind of bird it was, but went inside and asked Seth if he would pick it up and dispose of it. He looked at me and asked, "Jesse, do you know what kind of bird that is?" Of course, I did not know and responded "No, what is it?" He informed me that it was a sparrow. At the time, I was preoccupied with watering the flowers and getting back inside and cooking dinner. He stood there and asked me how ironic I thought it was that a sparrow was laying dead by the porch. Initially, I didn't think it was too ironic, because I had other things on my mind. He jokingly asked if I was at church on Sunday and then proceeded to say that to him it means that God was giving us a confirmation that we made the right decision by our commitment to become a member of the church, because had we not been at the church (on this particular Sunday morning) there would not be any significance.

The both of us truly believe that God led us to an amazing church that the both of us are extremely excited about. We had a wonderful experience at the membership class and visiting with an elder, and we are both excited about what God has in store for the both of our lives and our marriage. God is truly amazing and we could not be happier!