My love affair with old churches

My love affair with old churches

I love to travel and explore, but one thing I like to do is visit old churches. I’ve started a gallery of sorts, and there are some beautiful moments just observing churches. I think the first time I was appreciative of an old church was when my family and I were visiting a ghost town named Bodie. Now Bodie is in the Mammoth Lakes area, We walked up to the church and looked inside and learned that the ten commandments were stolen off the wall. Which my family thought was very ironic because it says not to steal in the 10 commandments. So today’s blog will be a little different. I want to share some of the pictures of my travels and the picture I took of old churches and maybe some things I learned.

This is Bodie’s church. It always struck me how this church was restored and even in the times of the west how people wanted their church to be beautiful.

This was my great grandmother’s church. It’s where my mother’s faith began, and I was struck by the bricks. Being a California girl, I immediately thought this was an ineffective building material. If you are in Earthquake bricks are not good. I asked my mom, and she said during a tornado that bricks are better because you can rebuild it. I put this picture in an art show and named it Stormproof because even in a storm you can pick up the pieces and rebuild.

This Church was in Stone City Iowa. When I came here I felt like I was transported to a Lucy Maud Montgomery Novel and somewhere over the bend was Anne Shirly with her flower crowns and friends trailing behind. There was beauty and reverence on this ground. I was struck how this church looked more like a castle than a church, but it still was beautiful.

This isn’t a church, but it still struck me. I love San Francisco, I love the attractions, I love the zoo, I love being by the water and how people are pretty nice. I love Golden Gate Park, and how around every nook and cranny there are unique finds. This one of those unique finds. We were playing pokemon Go and exhausted and found this cross. We stopped and looked and just felt the peace descend, and even though we were in a bustling city, there was this reminder of who God was and how important faith was.

My love affair with old churches always proves a few things.

God is not just a story, or I am not walking blindly. It’s important to note when more than one person believes something is real. Even the Bible states when more than one person joins in prayer God hears the prayers. God is real

Having faith is important. Faith is what allows pilgrims to travel far away to uproot and start again. Faith is what causes men to build churches in the busy city to be a safe haven against the storm

Finally Church and having a place to worship is, but it doesn’t need to be a church with gilded steeples( although they are beautiful) it can be humble, a living room, a place that is sacred and maintained that allows for the beauty, respect and finally God’s voice to filter in.

1 Kings 5:5 New Living Translation (NLT)
5 So I am planning to build a Temple to honor the name of the Lord my God, just as he had instructed my father, David. For the Lord told him, ‘Your son, whom I will place on your throne, will build the Temple to honor my name.’
TTFN and God Bless and Keep You:)