But then, it hit me like a tidal wave. Right in the middle of an Easter service in a church we found in Budapest, Hungary -- crashing hard over me and swallowing me completely.
First of all, Budapest wasn't even on my list of cities to see, especially not on Easter Sunday of all weekends, but sometimes plans and lists and expectations need to get thrown out the window. That's part of the deal on a trip like this. It wasn't a long train ride from Salzburg, which WAS at the top of my list thanks to the Von Trapps. So, Budapest it was.
First of all, Budapest wasn't even on my list of cities to see, especially not on Easter Sunday of all weekends, but sometimes plans and lists and expectations need to get thrown out the window. That's part of the deal on a trip like this. It wasn't a long train ride from Salzburg, which WAS at the top of my list thanks to the Von Trapps. So, Budapest it was.
Anyway, I guess I'm sort of a crier at home. It's one of those things that usually correlates directly with the amount of sleep I've gotten and how hungry I am. (The combination of those two things will get me. Sorry I'm a 3 year old.) But in general, tears are not my immediate reaction to anything except Les Mis and Marley and Me. So when I walked into the church in Budapest, I was surprised and confused by the tears that met the first chords of the worship song they began to play.
They played "At the Cross," a song I've heard a million and eight times at home. But this time, on the other side of the world, surrounded by girls I didn't even know a few weeks ago, I started crying.
And I tried to get myself together, I really did. It wasn't like this was my first time in a church for goodness sake. They were the silent kind of tears. Not the out of breath, body-wracking, hysterical kind, but the kind that just keep coming anyway.
They played "At the Cross," a song I've heard a million and eight times at home. But this time, on the other side of the world, surrounded by girls I didn't even know a few weeks ago, I started crying.
And I tried to get myself together, I really did. It wasn't like this was my first time in a church for goodness sake. They were the silent kind of tears. Not the out of breath, body-wracking, hysterical kind, but the kind that just keep coming anyway.
Because I forget how big the cross is. My vision had become clouded, my scope had grown so narrow. I get so caught up with figuring out who Christ is in my own life that I lose sight of the bigger story -- the one that's not actually about me at all. I had somehow forgotten that all God's people sing the same songs, the same praises, to the same God who gives me breath every morning. And His blood covers all of us.
It seems naive, I guess--to forget that Christ died for "the sins of the whole world." I know it sounds like gospel 101, but I think the idea of "the whole world" feels heavier because I've seen more of it. More of God's people, more of their depravity, more of grace.
It was powerful to come to grips with the responsibility that comes with traveling and seeing how broken our world is and humbling to remember how broken I am too. And more than that, how Christ can meet with me right in the middle of the big story anyway. Even in Budapest, Hungary on a rainy Sunday morning, when we stumble our way through the public transportation system and into the back row of a church we've never been to.
So, if you have to go 10 weeks without going to a real church service in Europe, tears might happen. Just warning you.
It seems naive, I guess--to forget that Christ died for "the sins of the whole world." I know it sounds like gospel 101, but I think the idea of "the whole world" feels heavier because I've seen more of it. More of God's people, more of their depravity, more of grace.
It was powerful to come to grips with the responsibility that comes with traveling and seeing how broken our world is and humbling to remember how broken I am too. And more than that, how Christ can meet with me right in the middle of the big story anyway. Even in Budapest, Hungary on a rainy Sunday morning, when we stumble our way through the public transportation system and into the back row of a church we've never been to.
So, if you have to go 10 weeks without going to a real church service in Europe, tears might happen. Just warning you.
