Who is my mother, and who are my brothers...

New Vision Ministry Center. It's not just a church to me. It's not somewhere I go to hang out with friends. There are times, more frequent than not, that the people within our walls are more of my family than my real family. I've laughed with you, I've cried with you. I've seen God move in ways that I can't fathom even today. I've watched so many of us grow in and through God to new levels of our walks with Him and every time something new happens, for ill or for good, I look at is as something going on in my family. When our people are hurt, I hurt, when they rejoice, I rejoice with them. I've been in a few different churches before, while I never felt out of place, they weren't the same. I had friends at them and it was fun to go hang out and talk after church and stuff, but they were never as close as I am with the people of New Vision. I truly love every member. There is such an acceptance and love in the place that it blows my mind. I have watched God use me in ways that I would have never thought of, and truthfully, sometimes have a hard time believing that He would care enough about me to use me. Looking back at what I've been through in my past, it was very hard at first to believe that any church would let someone with my track record operate in any kind of leadership or ministry at all, and yet, everywhere I turn, people are encouraging me to go in higher, to seek Him stronger, to go out and fulfill His destiny for my life. Similar to what my dear friend Michelle says, New Vision was truly a new start for me. Everything that I ever was or wanted to be has been laid out on the table and I have had to give Him my secret hurts and pains, but He has taken those and used them to create a testament to His glory. I heard a preacher once say something that God told him, an it soooo resonated within me. God told him (not an 'exact' quote, but close enough) "I will not remove the scars from your life, but rather, I will rearrange them so that they have the appearance of carving on fine crystal". I really feel that God has been doing that with me since I first step foot in New Vision. I was mad at my previous church, and didn't really want to go back to a church, and only went cause my dad made me, but once I stepped in there and saw the lights and music and everything, I knew I was home... I just didn't realize how much of a 'home' it would become. I could not live my life if I had to go a week without seeing all of you. Every one of you mean so much to me. I know that God's not finished with me yet either... I know that he has bigger and better things for me. He's just starting to open up my ministries to me. There are two promises that He gave me that have pretty much defined my life, and I believe that both of them will come out of New Vision. All of that being said, today was more than life changing... I was excited before I ever got down to service after class. I haven't sang in the choir, but something (God) told me I needed to sing this morning. I knew something big was going to happen, I knew God had something in store for us, but I had absolutely no idea that it would be on the scale it was on. When the video played at the end of service, I jumped, I cried... no, I bawled like a little baby... I've only cried that hard since coming to NVMC 3 times; when I got set free, when my friend got saved, and during a vision God gave me while Eddie James was here. The whole time, all I could think of, outside of how incredibly amazing God is, was, "Now my family has a home... We have a place that is ours". It made me wonder if the Israelites felt the same way crossing into their Promised Land. Today has been very emotional for me, and I've had to choke back the tears every time I think of everything that we've been through, and where God has brought us; my sisters, my brothers, my fathers, and my mothers, as He led us through desolate seasons and shaky times, to bring us out into His glorious plan for us.