blessings

Random!

I have had a lot going on lately and could use an early night, so I am doing my blog early. I don’t have a theme for today’s post, just a number of random thoughts. I have one friend who is a blogger who does “Random Thought Thursdays”…I’m sort of stealing her idea (thanks Becky!), but not doing it on a Thursday. Here we go:

1) I have mentioned before how blessed I have been by my colleagues in ministry. This week I have been especially blessed. A lot of really awesome friends-who-are-pastors have given me some of their time. Some have called (Alton! Jeremy!), some I have called (Janet!) and some have had time to grab a bite to eat (thanks Fred!). In each of these encounters I have been deeply blessed and hopefully have found a way to give back some blessing.

2) Haven’t been able to walk as much as I want to because Koski is still recovering from her spay surgery. I have intense guilt about leaving her in her crate in her cone while I go out walking. She FREAKS out. It’s not fun for either of us. So in order to get enough exercise, today I tried a workout from an iPhone app called Cards WOD (WOD stands for Workout Of the Day). It’s a great little program. You assign different moves to the different suits and then it ‘shuffles’ them and you do the number of reps that corresponds with the card value and suit (8 of hearts equals 8 jumping jacks, 2 of spades equals 2 pushups, etc.). Aces are a value of 20 and face cards are a value of 10. The jokers are one-offs that totally suck (50 burpees or 200 double unders). I only did about 80 percent of the work out (and no jokers) today, but it was a good workout. And as I get better at it, I should be able to do it in half an hour.

3) Loving the weather. It is warm and sunny and breezy today. It is supposed to be warm with a surplus of sun. It’s great to feel like the long grey winter is coming to an end. Can’t get enough of Spring!

4) Having coffee with a congregant this evening. It’s hilarious to me how much I look forward to a Skinny Vanilla Latte at Starbucks! Yum!

5) I am doing well on the financial struggle front. I have been able to stick to my budget and make adjustments where necessary. I was very worried about this month because it was time to buy Koski’s food ($100 output, but it feeds her for more than 3 months). But by the grace of God, I’ve been able to adjust the other expenses during the month to absorb this. If things go as expected for the next two weeks, my VISA should be completely paid off for the first time in a couple of years and I will be well on my way to rebuilding the loan I took out of savings to pay off the majority of the VISA. This is awesome, and I am feeling much “lighter” about the whole thing. I like knowing where my money is going and I haven’t felt really deprived of shopping. It’s become a bit of a game to see what bargains I can get when it comes to grocery shopping, as well.

Child of God…

Tonite I spent the evening with two wonderful women who are my colleagues in ministry and who have begun the WeightWatchers journey. It was wonderful to gather at the table and share laughter and faith and food.

Sometimes, I am so blessed by the people that God brings into my life, it is ridiculous. Who am I to deserve such good gifts?

Most of the time I am selfish, cranky, short sighted, lazy, judgmental, and fear-filled. I react in anger more quickly than in love. I doubt easier than I believe. I struggle more than I live in thanks.

So who am I to deserve such good gifts?

I am a child of God.

And somehow – through his grace and mercy and unfailing love – God sees that as enough of a reason to give me such unbelievably good gifts.

And I am thankful.

Flu-mageddon

It has been several days since I last blogged. That is because shortly after my last post, the stomach flu hit me hard. It had a one-two punch: nausea and diarrhea.

This week has mostly passed in a blur of stomach pain, strange sleeping patterns and days when I didn’t make it out of my pj’s. From what I hear, there were at least 7 other victims in my congregation. Goodness. What a week!

But I have been reminded of some great lessons this week:

1) Community is important, especially when the chips are down. After my initial moment of illness, I texted a trusted elder in the church because I knew she would let the appropriate people know that I was home sick for the next couple of days. She not only did that, she also supplied me with ginger ale and soup, and offered to pick up anything else I might need. Her kindness was echoed by many others in my congregation and it truly warmed my heart.

2) There ain’t nothin’ like family. My Mom, upon hearing I was sick, immediately offered to come and take care of me. No small thing, since it is about a 2.5 hr drive. As the week wore on and I continued to feel ill, she stopped offering and just made up her mind to come. When you are sick, there is nothing like your Mommy to make you feel better.

3) A dog is a wonderful companion. Koski was the best this week. I couldn’t take her out for our daily walks, but she never complained. She curled up close to me on the couch for most of the week. And I know I saw genuine concern in her eyes more than once.

4) I am blessed beyond what I deserve. Even when feeling rotten, there are so many good things for which to be thankful. First and foremost that this was just a passing illness. Not fun, for sure, but also not something that will keep me down for long. And then beyond that – more things than I could count. Little things like a comfy couch and a good book with which to pass the week. And big things, like the three I have mentioned above.

5) Even in this, God is with me. I had friends who offered their prayers this week, and that kept me thinking about God’s presence. It kept me thinking about the fact that though I felt cut off from most of my regular activities and relationships, I cannot go anywhere that He is not with me.

I hope your week has been easier than mine. And I hope you will take a moment and think about the lessons this week has taught you.

Words of comfort…

Tonite during the video part of our weekly study, The Divine Conspiracy, John Ortberg told a story about his daughter. When she was upset he or his wife would say to her “Honey, honey, honey, I know, I know, I know.” When she grew up enough to start speaking, they would hear on the baby monitor that she would self-comfort. She’d wake up from a scary dream and say to herself, “Honey, honey, honey, I know, I know, I know.” These had become words of comfort and of love for her.

So one of our discussion questions had to do with what sort of words from God would be the equivalent to our own “Honey, honey, honey, I know, I know, I know.”

When I was a kid, my Dad would say to me, when I was afraid, “It’s ok, it’s going to be fine. I wouldn’t tell you that if it wasn’t true.” My Dad’s voice saying “I wouldn’t tell you that if it wasn’t true,” is one of the most comforting sounds in the entire world to me. And I think the equivalent would be all the times in the Bible that God says “Do not fear, I am with you.”

There is something so comforting in just knowing that our Heavenly Father is with us. He does not leave us, he does not forsake us. I wish I could share the peace I find in that that thought with everyone I meet. I wish I could go around handing out that certainty and comfort to all those in need of it.

Counting more blessings…

I have a couple of different ideas for a blog rolling around in my brain pan right now, but I also have a headache rolling around in there. So I thought I’d do a short post tonite and give gratitude to God for some good things in my life (I believe this is a good way to deal with pain, whether physical, spiritual or emotional).

Today I am thankful for:

-having spent some time with my buddy Luke (we ate, talked, walked and watched all 3 extended edition Lord of the Rings movies). Luke has been an excellent friend for a lotta years, and I am blessed to get to spend time with him.

-good food. I picked up some oranges (for cheap!) at Sobey’s on Saturday and I am just burning my way through them. Also on the menu the last couple of days: awesome butternut squash soup, potato turkey saute, steak, eggplant and pineapple on the BBQ. Yummy.

-my health/my body. I was on the stability ball today, and I realised how able my body is (and becoming more so all the time), and how good my health is…and I couldn’t have said that this time last year. It’s good to stop and be thankful for that even as I continue to transform.

-a holiday Monday. Say what you will about family day, I am always glad for a break. And today’s break from the normal routine has been greatly appreciated.

-a good place to work, live and sleep. (They are not all the same place!) I love my church and the work I get to do with them. I love the house, the neighborhood and the city in which I live. This is a great thing – and since ministers go where ever the call leads them, it’s not always the case. I love my bedroom. I just gave it a major cleaning and did some decluttering, and that has reminded me once again how much I love it.

-companionship. Between friends, family, chosen family and the animals in my life, I have a lot to be thankful for – and that’s before you count the constant companionship of the triune God of the Universe.

These are some ‘big’ or maybe ‘general’ blessings…I think I will have to think about and come up with some random little things for which I can thank God this week.

Anticipating visitors…

So this week is the week for visitors at my house. I have a friend who will be spending Sunday and Monday with me, my folks are dropping their dog and my brother off on Wednesday before thy head out of town, and then on Friday my folks will be back and we will celebrate my Dad’s birthday.

In anticipation of this I have been cleaning. I am not big fan of cleaning, and usually I need the fact that visitors are coming in order to motivate me. It’s funny how I can be really motivated in some things and totally unmotivated in others. It’s also funny that having some people come to visit – who are family and have seen my house at its worst – is all the motivation I need.

I am not sure if that says something unhealthy about how I want to represent myself as more of a neat freak than I am, or if it says something good about the fact that I want guests in my home to experience a clean, comfortable environment.

I like to hope it is the latter (though I suspect it might be the former). I like to hope that having a sense of Christian hospitality has something to do with it.

Whatever the case, what is certain is that I will be spending most of the day tomorrow in preparation for my guests between shopping, cooking, cleaning, and other chores). Two blessings are obvious to me in this: first that I have a home & food to share; and second that I have people to share them with. God is good!