Church Experiences

Greetings. I wanted to write about some experiences that I had this morning at church. I attend Scofield Memorial Church, on Abrams Road in Dallas. I have really enjoyed my time here since I've been going, which I started going in the spring of last year.

Anyway, everyone that I've come in contact with, has accepted me, with no exception. No one has questioned my abilities, and I haven't had to prove myself to anyone, as in prove myself as a blind person. I've been in situations at other churches where this wasn't always the case.

Well, the first instance happened in Sunday school. The class that I go to is for young singles. At the end of the class, when the leader asked for prayer requests, I said that I had one. It seems that our class never lets out on time, so the leader said that those who wanted to leave, could do so. I quickly said that I wanted those who knew me to stay, and the leader repeated my request and added again that those who wanted to leave could. No one got up. We usually have between 8 and 10 people, but I think we had more than 10 there this morning. It was nearly full in fact. I was quite surprised and pleased that everyone stayed where they were, even people that I had not met before didn't leave. That's part of what I mean by everyone being so accepting of me.

After the class let out, I started to leave, but the leader told me to sit back down. He said that he wanted to pray for me and for my job loss. When one of my church drivers came to meet me and go with me to the main service, once the driver heard that the leader was going to pray for me, that touched me as well. I'm not usually comfortable with someone putting their hands on me during prayer, even though it is in the Bible. However, this time I was glad that he did. It made his prayer more real to me.

The last thing that happened was a song we sang in the main service. The song is called, "Draw me close to You," and goes as follows:

Draw me close to You, never let me go,
I lay it all down again, to hear You say That I'm Your friend.
You are my desire, no one else will do,
Cause nothing else could take Your place.
To feel the warmth of Your embrace.
Help me find the way, Bring me back to You.

Chorus:
You're all I want. You're all I ever needed.
You're all I want, help me know You are near.

Since I first heard this song, it has touched me and seemed like a song that one friend would sing or say to another. It takes on new meaning to me now, especially the first two or three lines, in my recent lay off. When reading it on my Pac Mate this morning, I had to stop singing for a few minutes because tears welled up in my eyes. It was very moving for me.

It's always hard for me to pick my "favorite," but I think this song is my current favorite song to sing in church.