helped me have a sense of grace for myself . That anyone who is goal oriented , where you look at yourself and your goals and wish you were further along … or that an aspect was different . It acknowledges that when you trust God as someone who is continually growing and shaping you , you treat yourself differently .
You don ’ t have as much of a negative selfcriticism when you realize that you ’ re not done yet . 2020 was my test for that ! No one knows this more than me trying to homeschool ! Why am I homeschooling ? This is not what I signed up for . I am impatient , I am losing my mind , I feel unsettled about the future . Everything just kicks up in you and you have an opportunity to either entertain self-condemnatory thoughts , or do you take it to God and say , “ I felt this today , this is still in here . I thought we delt with this feeling of inadequacy or this insecurity of my professional life not moving forward the way I thought .” All of those things and taking it to the Master artisan who is using everything and doesn ’ t do waste , and never allows us to look at certain things and say , “ Well that doesn ’ t matter .” So that song has been a massive reminder and encourager to me , and it ’ s the one song my three-year-old sings clearly every
Pat Barrett - Canvas and Clay ( Live ) ft . Ben Smith
night before we go to bed . He says he wants to sing “ All Things Work Together ”, that ’ s what he calls it . I ’ m hearing a three-year-old sing back to me , “ You make all things work together , for Your glory .” He ’ s got his whole life ahead of him . Will he even remember the previous years ? Who knows ? But I ’ m watching him grow up physically . You blink and they grow an inch in a week . It ’ s just been such a beautiful picture of , I wonder if I could sing it like that , like he does with my whole life ahead of me and nothing to fear ?
[ WM ] We ’ re all going on one year with this pandemic . Beyond the hardships and tragedy , for some it has been a time of disillusionment , and yet for others , a time of creative and introspective rebirth . Has your understanding of the worshiping church changed , and if so , in what ways ?
[ Pat ] Yes . And no . ( laughs ). I feel like there have been habits that in large many of us have fallen into that we have deemed necessary and not simply just additive . I think for me it ’ s posed the question , “ What do you really need in order to have connection and community with God in a deep , transformative , rich way ?” Fog machines and lasers are not one of them . I realized , we ’ ve all realized , we don ’ t need to all be together inside of a room to have that . There ’ s also been the reminder of the thing we ’ ve had all along which is the communion of the saints . In a beautiful way the longing to be together and share our lives in honest and open and vulnerable ways has been highlighted by God more than ever . That ’ s not going anywhere . It ’ s not good to be alone . There are times of withdrawing to lonely places like Jesus did , but being separated , the idea of separation in any way , we ’ re separated from each other but were not separated from God .
But we really do need each other , you have to have somebody else to love one another the way Christ has loved us . So that for me has been a reminder of the thing we ’ ve always had .