In Lynchburg, Virginia, and Surrounding Areas
Church #185 was a little bit of everywhere this weekend, which seems to be the way the Holy Spirit has been leading me lately.
There were families to serve, groceries to buy, an Operation Christmas Child shoebox to finish before the deadline, family members to care for, meals to prepare for another busy week, and approximately a thousand other things running through my mind while I tried to remember what I had walked into a room to do in the first place.
If I had to narrow this week’s church experience down to one place, though, I would say it happened while serving families, because that is where God continues to meet me, teach me, stretch me, and remind me that ministry does not always happen when we have plenty of time, energy, or emotional strength to spare.
Sometimes ministry happens when we are running on fumes, holding on to Jesus with both hands, and praying He will somehow multiply what little strength we have left. And that, my dearest friends, brings me to the sermon that has been pressing on my heart this week.
Remembrance.
I have been thinking about that word a great deal lately, perhaps because life has become so incredibly hard that I find myself needing to remember what God has already brought me through just to keep believing that I will make it through what is happening now.
I want to be transparent with you because I have never wanted this church journey to become a collection of beautiful stories that make following Jesus look easier than it really is. My family has been walking through some difficult circumstances, and although I am not ready to share everything happening behind the scenes, I can tell you that there have been days when it feels like we are being hit by one wave after another before we have even had the opportunity to recover from the last one.
I trust God. I believe He is good. I believe His timing is perfect, even when I do not understand it. I believe He is working in ways I cannot see. But I would be lying if I told you I have been walking through this season with an enormous smile on my face and not a worry in the world.
My head feels like it is barely above water.
And I am tired…
I wish a good night’s sleep could fix it, although I would certainly welcome one of those too. I am talking about exhaustion that settles into your heart after you have spent a long season being strong because people need you, showing up because responsibilities do not disappear, and continuing to move because stopping does not seem to be an option.
I have not had what I would consider a true day off in quite some time. On the days I am away from the office, there are still responsibilities waiting for me at home, deadlines to meet, people to care for, errands that cannot be postponed, and all the little things that keep a household and a family moving forward. I am grateful to be alive, grateful to have work, grateful to have people to love, and grateful that God continues to give me opportunities to serve, but gratitude does not erase exhaustion.
I think Christians sometimes need permission to admit that.
We can be thankful and tired at the same time. We can love our families and feel overwhelmed by responsibility. We can believe God is going to provide and still wonder how we are going to make it through the week. We can have genuine faith and still cry ourselves to sleep. And we can know with everything inside us that Jesus is Lord while pleading with Him to change our circumstances because we simply do not know how much longer we can keep going at the same pace.
I am not ashamed to tell you that I am praying for an urgent shift toward something better.
Lord, we need some relief. We need some breathing room. We need some answered prayers. We need some circumstances to change. We need a miraculous breakthrough that reminds this weary family that the storm is not going to last forever. And while I know God’s answers do not always arrive according to the timetable I would choose, I also know we are invited to bring our needs boldly before Him.
Hebrews 4:16 tells us to approach God’s throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Well, Lord, this is a time of need. And I am coming boldly.
I have been thinking about the disciples in Mark 4, when Jesus was asleep in the boat while a terrible storm came upon them. The waves were crashing, the boat was filling with water, and the disciples were terrified. They woke Jesus and asked, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?” I have always thought that question was one of the most painfully human moments. Because sometimes, when the waves have been relentless, and heaven seems quiet, fear begins whispering into our hearts.
The waves were over their heads, but they were never over His.
Somebody, please hear that. Because I needed to hear it myself.
I may feel like I am barely keeping my head above water, but Jesus is not struggling to stay afloat beside me. He is not looking at my circumstances in surprise, wondering how things became so complicated or whether He has enough power left to help. He is still Lord over the wind. He is still Lord over the sea. And He is still Lord over everything happening in my life that I cannot control.
God repeatedly instructed His people to remember. Remember their deliverance from Egypt. Remember the wilderness. Remember the manna. Remember the covenant. Remember the mighty things He had done.
In Joshua 4, after the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, God instructed them to take twelve stones from the riverbed and set them up as a memorial. Those stones would become a reminder for future generations of how God had made a way through the water. I love that sooooooooo much.
God knew His people would face more challenges. So He gave them something to look back at. And I wonder whether some of us need to start gathering our own stones of remembrance. Not literal stones necessarily, although I have always loved the symbolism, but the memories of what God has already done when we thought there was no possible way forward. I have some stones. Oh, Lord knows…do I have some stones.
There are things from my childhood that I would not wish upon another human being, especially a child. Eight years of sexual abuse, starting at the age of eight years old, left deep wounds that reached into places I did not even know existed at the time.
There were so many years when I was learning to survive instead of learning how to simply be a child. Years when the adults who should have protected me did not provide the safety I desperately needed. And the effects of those years did not simply disappear when the abuse ended. They followed me into adulthood in ways I have spent years trying to understand, confront, grieve, and heal. When a child spends years living with trauma, it changes everything. It changes how you understand safety, love, trust, and even your own worth.
I know what it means to live with that. I know what it means to have memories of the most horrific, unspeakable things. I know what it means to wonder whether the things that happened to you will always have some measure of influence over the life you are trying so desperately to build.
And yet, here I am.
Forty-something years into this life. Still believing that God has good things ahead. Still trusting Jesus with a heart that has been broken more times than I ever imagined it could survive.
And that is a stone of remembrance.
Because there were years when I could not imagine making it this far. There were years when the future did not look like a place where joy would ever live. There were years when hope felt like something other people were allowed to have. But Jesus kept holding me.
He held me through the childhood I did not deserve. He held me through the years when the consequences of that childhood continued to shape my adult life. He held me through disappointments, grief, rejection, loss, and seasons when I could not understand why so many things seemed to hurt.
And He is holding me now.
I want to be very careful about something here, because I never want anyone to believe that God needed a child to suffer horrific abuse so that she could someday become useful to Him. I do not believe that. What happened was wrong, and I will never call it good simply because I have found ways to help others through what I survived. But I do believe that God can redeem what He did not approve, and He can bring beauty into places where human cruelty once tried to destroy everything.
That is what Romans 8:28 means to me when it tells us that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Not that everything was good. But that evil does not get to decide the ending.
And perhaps that is why this journey toward 400 churches has become so much more emotional than I ever expected. We are approaching the halfway mark. Two hundred churches. Halfway to a goal that will take approximately eight years to complete.
Eight years.
The same length of time I endured sexual abuse as a child.
I have been sitting with that comparison lately, and I do not think I have fully found the words to explain what it means to me. Eight years of my childhood were marked by fear, pain, secrecy, and circumstances I had no power to control. And now, as an adult, I am intentionally spending eight years walking through churches, communities, homes, workplaces, and unexpected sanctuaries looking for Jesus, learning about His love, and sharing that love with others.
The first eight years were something that happened to me. These eight years are something I am choosing to give to God. And that makes me emotional. Because I cannot go back and give that little girl the childhood she deserved. I cannot undo what happened. I cannot recover the innocence that was taken or make the people who failed her suddenly become the people she needed.
But I can live differently now. I can choose what I do with the life in front of me. I can spend eight years looking for goodness instead of being surrounded by fear. I can spend eight years meeting people who love Jesus. I can spend eight years walking into places where kindness is being practiced, prayers are being spoken, and people are trying to make this world a little better. I can spend eight years telling anyone willing to listen that what happened to them does not have to become the only thing their life is remembered for. And I can spend eight years allowing Jesus to continue healing the woman that little girl became.
The years that once taught me to be afraid of people are being answered by years in which God is teaching me how beautiful people can be. Oh, that one makes me cry. Because this community has been part of that healing. You have no idea how many times your kindness has reached me on a day when I desperately needed it.
The prayers. The hugs. The messages. The encouragement. The people who stop me to tell me they have been following this journey. The families who have trusted me during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. The people who have opened their church doors, their homes, their hearts, and their lives.
I spent so many years learning what it felt like to be hurt by people, and now God keeps surrounding me with people who remind me what love is supposed to feel like. And while I know no community is perfect, I am deeply grateful for this one.
You have all become part of my stones of remembrance.
When I look back over these 185 churches, I do not simply remember buildings or sermons. I remember faces. I remember hands reaching for mine. I remember people praying with me. I remember laughter. I remember stories. I remember families. I remember moments when I walked into a place expecting to learn something about a church and walked away having learned something about the goodness of God.
And now, during a season when my family needs prayer more than I can adequately explain, I find myself reaching toward that same community and asking you to help hold us up. Because I am tired. And I am learning that admitting I need help does not mean I have failed at being faithful. Moses needed help too. In Exodus 17, while Israel was fighting the Amalekites, Moses held up his hands, and as long as his hands were raised, Israel prevailed. But eventually his arms grew tired. So Aaron and Hur came alongside him, placed a stone beneath him so he could sit, and held his hands up until the battle was over.
I have always loved that passage, but I hear it much differently now.
Moses was a man God had called. He had witnessed miracles. He had seen the Red Sea part. He had heard God’s voice. And still, his arms got tired. Being called by God did not make him immune to exhaustion. Being faithful did not mean he never needed help. And the victory did not come because Moses somehow found the strength to hold everything up by himself. God provided people to help him carry what had become too heavy.
I think that is one of the most beautiful pictures of Christian community in the Bible.
Sometimes we are the ones holding somebody else’s arms up. And sometimes we are Moses, sitting on a rock, admitting we cannot keep our hands raised without help. Right now, I feel a little like Moses.
I am still praying. Still working. Still serving. Still trusting. Still trying to keep my hands lifted toward heaven. But my arms are tired. And if you have been following this journey, I would be so grateful if you would help hold them up through prayer. Please pray for my family. Pray for provision. Pray for protection. Pray for peace in our home. Pray for healing in the places that hurt. Pray for wisdom in the decisions we have to make. Pray for the circumstances we cannot yet explain publicly. Pray that God will open the right doors, close the wrong ones, and make a way through situations that have felt impossible. And pray for rest.
Because I believe Jesus when He says in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
I do not believe He said that only to people whose lives were going great, full of sunshine and rainbows. He said it to the weary. To the burdened.
To people like me.
And people like you.
I also keep thinking about Psalm 77, where he is so troubled that he cannot sleep. He cries out to God, remembers former days, and asks painful questions about whether God’s love and mercy have disappeared. Then something changes. He begins remembering what God has done. He remembers the miracles. He remembers the mighty works. He remembers that God made a path through the sea.
And I think that is what remembrance does for us. It reminds us that the present is not the only chapter God has written. When I remember the past, I am not simply looking backward. I am gathering evidence of God’s faithfulness to carry into tomorrow.
I remember the little girl who survived. I remember the young woman who kept going. I remember the prayers that were answered in ways I never expected. I remember the people God sent at exactly the right time. I remember the doors that opened after I thought everything was falling apart. I remember the love I have been given. I remember the grace that has carried me this far. And I remember that God who was faithful then has not changed!
I may not know what God is doing next, but I know too much about what He has already done to believe He has stopped caring now.
I do not know when this season will change. I am praying it will be soon. I am praying that some of the pressure will lift, that some long-awaited answers will come, and that my family will be able to breathe a little easier. But I am also trying to pay attention to what God is doing in me while I wait.
Because the seasons are changing. Literally and figuratively. The air is beginning to feel different. The days are getting shorter. The leaves will change, fall, and eventually leave the trees looking bare for a while. And I cannot help but think about the pruning Jesus describes in John 15. Jesus calls Himself the true vine and His Father the gardener. He speaks about branches being pruned so that they can bear more fruit. Pruning is uncomfortable. Sometimes it means letting go of things we thought we needed. Sometimes it means discovering that what once worked in one season cannot carry us into the next. Sometimes it means learning that we cannot keep saying yes to every demand without eventually becoming too exhausted to fulfill the assignments that matter most.
And perhaps this is part of what God is teaching me now.
I have always wanted to help. I have always wanted to serve. I have always wanted to give everything I have to the people who need me. But even Jesus withdrew from the crowds to pray. Even Jesus rested. Even Jesus did not respond to every demand placed upon His earthly time. And when the Savior of the world made room for quiet, prayer, and communion with the Father, perhaps I need to stop treating rest as something I am only allowed to have after every possible responsibility has been completed.
Because that day may never come. There will always be another task. That is not selfishness. God gave me this life, and caring for it matters too. So maybe some of this pruning is about learning when to work and when to rest, when to say yes and when to say not right now, when to keep pushing forward and when to trust that God can continue working even while I am sleeping.
After 185 churches, I am still learning. And I imagine I will be learning for the rest of my life.
This weekend may not have looked like a traditional church service. There were families to serve, groceries to purchase, a shoebox to fill for a child I will likely never meet, meals to prepare, and loved ones to care for. But in all of those places, I was reminded that God has given me another day to love people, another opportunity to be useful, and another chance to reflect a little of the light Jesus has brought into my own life.
I may be exhausted, but I am still grateful. I may be worried, but I am still praying. I may be walking through a difficult season, but I am still looking for the goodness of God in the middle of it. And I may not be able to tell you everything that is happening behind the scenes right now, but I can tell you this, I have not forgotten what God has already done.
I remember the fires. I remember the seas. I remember the mountains. I remember the lions. I remember the nights I thought I would never make it through. I remember the little girl who could not imagine a future beyond her pain. And I remember the Savior who never stopped reaching for her.
So when I feel like I am drowning, I am going to remember the God who parts waters. When I feel surrounded, I am going to remember the God who shuts lions’ mouths. When I feel overwhelmed, I am going to remember the God who moves mountains. And when I feel too tired to keep my arms lifted, I am going to remember that God never intended for His children to carry every burden alone.
I am praying for a new season. A season of peace. A season of provision. A season of answered prayers. A season where my family can rest a little easier and breathe a little deeper. A season where the things God has been pruning begin to produce beautiful fruit. And while I wait, I am going to keep remembering.
God brought me through what I never should have had to survive, and He is still writing a future I once never believed I would live long enough to see. And that is worth praising Him for.
Church #185 was not in one beautiful sanctuary this weekend. It happened in the middle of a heart desperately trying to hold on to hope. But perhaps the most important part of the sermon was not where church happened. It was remembering that God has been with me through every place this journey has taken me.
I do not know where the Holy Spirit will lead next week, but I know He is already there. I know the seasons are changing. I know God is still working. I know His love has not run out.
And I know that even in the middle of this painful pruning, the Gardener has not abandoned the branches.
And somehow, even with my tired heart, my weary soul, and my head barely above water, I still believe there are beautiful things ahead. Please keep my family in your prayers, and thank you for every single way you have loved us along this journey. One day, when the time is right, I will share more of what God has brought us through, and I pray that testimony will encourage someone else who is standing in the middle of their own storm, wondering whether the waters will ever become calm again.
Until then, I am holding on to Jesus.
And I am remembering.
I cannot wait to see where the Holy Spirit leads next week, and whatever that looks like, I pray I will meet it with a grateful heart, open hands, and big faith.
Love you all so very much,
Annie Stewart Lambert
