Smurf mortal combat

No moral lesson today. I just laughed at this so hard, I decided it deserved a blog.

It was just me and the two oldest on the ride home today. We were having our normal after school discussions such as: "How was your day, how was lunch, you should reapply your deodrant after football practice, etc."

Out of the blue James (13) says, "Smurf mortal combat - now that would be a great spoof". My incredulous response, "What are you talking about?"

So James goes on to tell me this detailed story line of famous people and charcters spoofed as smurfs. He suggested Schwarzenegger smurf, Gandalf smurf, and Chuck Norris smurf (just to name a few).

He outlined some great movie moments for me, while I screeched with laughter and tried hard to hold the steering wheel steady. Schwarznegger smurf would walk away from the fight, "I'll smurf back.". Gandalf would swing his staff around to guard his territory, racking himself, and yelling "oh,smurf!". James said that Chuck Norris would win the battle "because he's just smurfy."

The longer he went on, the harder and harder I laughed. Gosh, I love that kid. I'm sure it was much funnier in person with him doing all the voices and impressions, but I thought that maybe, just maybe, if you really use your imagination you might catch a small glimpse into my crazy life.

Monday Morning Update 1.18

Another weekend has flown by. This time it was even a three day weekend, and I still accomplished very little on my to-do list.

We had a good day at The Crossroads. Shawn started a new message on money. This will be interesting to see how new believers respond to messages about God's perspective on money. I would guess that money management is one of the most challenging, and screwed up things in people's lives.

I definitely missed our drummer this week as she was working kid's cove, but I think worship was fine anyway. I liked the new Crowder song this week, "Never Let Go". It seemed very appropriate with the pain and suffering in Haiti.

We began our first family journey group in Anna. Shawn went through some of the peak 1 class material with the group. I wound up babysitting. I decided that since I have heard the material many times before, that it was more important that I watch a couple of very young children so that their parents could concentrate on the curriculum and on getting to know other believers. I appreciated my daughter, Grace really stepping up on this one. I needed a second set of hands so she had to give up playing with her friends to help out. She never even whined, and she worked hard all evening.

I am looking forward to a second new journey group on Thursday night. I am excited about how God is going to move among our congregation and how He will use those groups to grow our people spiritually and to bring new families in.

Please pray for our family. We are trying hard to get our house clean enough to put it back on the market. It would be nice to live in the town where we are ministering, instead of commuting - often several times a day. Cleaning is an overwhelming task to me. I cannot find a way to stay ahead of my children. Even in trying to enlist their assistance, it still is a bigger task than we have been able to accomplish - in part because we are never home - because of the commuting to Anna several times a day. Then once the house is listed, trying to maintain perfection with four kids is miserable. Pray that I would not be discouraged.

Exhaustion - It's the American Way

This morning as my head pounded, primarily from sheer exhaustion, I realized that this is the American way of life. Every person, especially every woman that I know, is exhausted. We wake up early, stay up late, and push ourselves hard every minute of every day. We are irritable, grumpy, and short-tempered with the people around us. We drink coffee and energy drinks just to function.

As I was spending time in God's word this morning, I was researching how worship is an exclusive event - belonging only to God. However, every verse I referenced was somewhere on the same page as verses about keeping the Sabbath. I have to say that this is probably the command that we as Americans dismiss the most - well that and maybe coveting.

I try to excuse my busy life with "But God, it's ministry." Every part of my life - teaching, Bible study, working out, blogging, twitter, facebook... it's all in some way connected to growing our church plant and furthering the God's kingdom. But this morning as I reread the verses and tried to argue my point that I need the weekends to clean and to connect with people for ministry opportunities, I saw something new. Every place that I read about keeping the Sabbath, God answered my argument. "For on the 7th day God Himself rested." Hmmm...... maybe if rest is so important that God Himself took time out to rest, maybe, just maybe, I should consider this Sabbath deal again.

I wonder how Christianity would look if we loved as Jesus loved, passionately pursued God, and if we were a rested, unstressed people. That sounds like a faith worth living.

Pray about this. I don't know how on Earth to fit resting into my schedule.

The purple robe

My alarm buzzes at 4:45. That's way too early for me to be up. I am not a morning person. Groggily my feet hit the ground and I stumble to the bathroom.

I throw on my very ugly purple robe and stagger into the kitchen where I fumble in the cabinet for a cup. I sniff the coffee pot first, then pour my cup full to the brim. A few sips, and I can focus my eyes on the task at hand.

The purple robe is an interesting item in my wardrobe. Let me say that it is ugly and I hate it. I have owned it since the dawn of time, and it was ugly then. My mom bought it on clearance for me when I was a teenager. I hated it so much that I cried. But it is warm. That's the only nice thing I have to say about it. I have never gotten around to replacing it.

However, this morning as I sat reading my Bible and writing, I let my mind wander a bit. I remember our first apartment, waking up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons together, me in that ugly purple robe.

I remember walking the floor night after night with my colicky firstborn, in the ugly purple robe. I remember nighttime feedings, and early morning rockings with all my babies, in the ugly purple robe.

I remember breakfasts made for my husband and kids, mornings snuggling on the couch drinking coffee and spending time in God's Word with Shawn. All wearing that ugly purple robe.

And currently I am wearing it as I approach my very first writing attempt, and as I am studying and learning about who God is.

I have memories from each of our homes, from every stage in our lives, all tied to that ugly robe. The longer I remembered, the more beautiful the robe became. Maybe I am not so anxious to replace it after all.

Monday Morning Update 1.11.10

What a cold morning! This week during set up it was about 12 degrees. That's pretty darn cold. I was dreading unloading in the cold. I had to run down to my classroom to grab a couple of pieces of paper to make sign-ups for small groups, and by the time I returned to help unload the truck, there was a whole herd of people helping. I love The Crossroads. 12 degrees and nobody thought, "It's cold, I'm not going to help out this morning."

We had 115 people this week. With 80 chairs and 74 adults, it looks like next week we will have to set up more chairs. It is exciting to watch the growth happening at an exponential rate. Children's church is booming. We will soon need to add additional workers to be able to effectively teach our kids about Jesus. I know that this week in the nursery, my daughter Grace said it was really hard to manage that many children with only two people.

Shawn recast the vision this week, as he typically does every January. It is important to him that we never forget who we are and why we exist. I love the single minded focus that he encourages. We will love God, love people and rock (reach) the world. Our lives must be driven by those forces. As long as we keep our focus pure as a church, it becomes difficult to be apathetic, disgruntled, and lazy.

I am excited about the next couple of topics coming up. The rest of January, Shawn will be preaching about money matters. He will be talking about how to use your finances in a way that brings God honor and glory. I am hoping that he will give me an opportunity to share about consumerism and fair trade, about using our money in a way that encourages justice and fair treatment of those less fortunate than ourselves. In February, he is toying with the idea of a marriage series called "hot and spicy" where the two of us will share the stage to tell our story of a broken marriage and how God redeemed it. How God brought beauty from ashes. He would like for us to share how we make our marriage work by keeping God first and to allow our congregation the opportunity to ask us questions about marriage.

I enjoyed worship this week. I liked using scripture interwoven among the songs. I think it allows God to speak through His word to our people. I am excited about our growth as a worship team. We will soon begin a bible study time together. I think that will create a bond that will carry over onto the stage.

I loved having the opportunity to visit with several of our new members after church at a birthday party. It is cool to see friendships growing and new leaders rising up among the new members.

Last night we took time to sit down and evaluate our last mission trip and discuss our next trip. I am excited about where God is taking us and how He will be using us to fulfill the great commission.

Creator God

I reread the story of creation yesterday. It really struck me how much more complex and powerful God is than I am. I would say that I am a creative person. But on my best day, in my best moment, I cannot decide to create an entire universe and breathe life into it.

God's creativity is wild. No identical leaves, snowflakes, or blades of grass. An array of colors we can never duplicate. He created an people that are each unique in appearance, personality, and talents. Each grain of sand is a different color, size, and shape.

No wonder creation causes us to bow ourselves before God in worship. What an amazing God we serve. Unfathomable, and yet He desires to know us personally. Shocked and awed me all over again.

New Year's Resolutions

I don't remember if I made any New Year's Resolutions. Or if I kept them. It seems kind of pointless to me. I tend to try to change things in my life throughout the year. Trying to change all the things that are wrong with me all at once is a wee bit overwhelming. However, this year I do have two or three resolutions.

Here they are:

1. I will wake up 30 minutes earlier so that I can have time to read my Bible and pray before I start my day. I want to make sure that God does not get my tired leftover self at night.

2. I lost 10 pounds last year, and 10 pounds the year before that, so it would be nice to lose 10 more pounds this year. This one is not so much a resolution about my weight, but is instead a resolution that I will continue working out daily and let the pounds fall as they may.

That's it.