Well, it has been a busy week. There have been many moments that I have silently said to myself, "I have to blog about that one!" Now, at the end of it all, I am not sure I remember all of those perfect, blogworthy events. That is the way things go, I guess.
I do, however, have some memories still swirling at the forefront of my mind. I am going to try to hammer some of them out here...
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I usually start my Tuesday mornings off at Caribou Coffee. It is my favorite coffee shop chain. On Tuesdays I go and sit there for a few hours, reading, centering, and getting my thoughts ready for a Bible study I have with one of our young fathers on Tuesday mornings. On March 14, Eric, one of the funniest baristas I have ever met, was doing his usual standup service routine. I vividly remember him saying to one gracefully attractive late thirty-early forty year old woman, "Here you go, my lady. Alas, our time has again been cut short by the promptness of my drink making." Well, maybe it doesn't look so funny on the blog, but he had me spitting out coffee that morning.
What caught me more, though, was his response to an Oakland University student. She told him that he should do stand-up comedy. He thought about it briefly and then reflectively said, "But then I would be getting paid for doing it, it would lose its spiritual quality."
It would lose its spiritual quality... I haven't had a chance to run into him since that morning, but there are some serious questions I would like to ask him about that statement. I want him to flesh out what he means for me. It is so ripe with possibility and meaning. Kind of makes me wonder about the spiritual quality of what we do with our lives...
I have a study there tomorrow morning, maybe he'll be spiritually serving his drinks so I can ask him how he understands the spiritual nature of his work.
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Saturday afternoon I got to attend an adoption party for a two year old girl at LOCC. It was a special celebration day. The family blessed me by asking me to say a blessing over the day, the adoption, and their family. But what was a greater blessing was the gift of watching the Hodges throughout the day. You see, they invited the birth father and his family, fourteen members of his family, to come and be a part of the day.
This was no small thing. I had the chance to talk to them about their thoughts on Friday night before the party. They were nervous and apprehensive. They struggled to know what would happen and with whether they had done the right thing by allowing the birth father to come. Throughout the day, they were caught under the emotional weight of it all, at times brought to tears in the corner. BUT, they masterfully, with the grace of Christ, invited the family to be fully a part of the day. They gave the birth family time alone to open gifts with the girl that was now their daughter. They joined them and spent time with the birth family. They found time to spend alone with their daughter. It was brilliant and humbling to watch the love of God pour out of them that day.
I don't know what kind of contact they will continue to have with the birth father's family, if any, but for those few hours on Saturday, there was not doubt that the Spirit of God gave them the strength to love people as only God can love them.
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We are in the middle of an elder selection process at LOCC. Sunday I had the privilege of unpacking "one-woman-man" (1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:6) and "believing children" (Titus 1:6). Fun stuff! I told them that my main goal was to shine some light on the muddy waters, not to clear them up, but to force us to understand the difficulties of the text. I was honest and said that at the end of the day, things may make less sense than they did before I taught, but that if we, as good CoCers, are going to be people of the book like we claim, then we must acknowledge that it is not all as cut-and-dry as we have often tried to make it.
I only heard one dissenting voice afterwards. On the other hand, I did hear some wonderful comments. For example, that I did clear up the waters, the waters of legalism. I forced us to admit that it is not as easy as we try to make. I heard that I really helped protect baptism from becoming just an item on a checklist (thank you, Lord!). I heard that the most important thing that I said all class was that there are multiple options on how to read and understand these texts. You have to make some kind of decision for yourself, but you MUST have the humility to allow others to land at a different place. We must discern as individuals and as a community of faith.
I was nervous. I left feeling that God was able to do something through me.
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Sunday Shelby, a precious 4 month old girl at LOCC, made her first trip to our assembly. She has been in some dire health straits from the day she was born. But Sunday she came. I was able to call her and her family to the front and bless Shelby and her parents. It was a gift that our church family has been praying about for a long time. God, continue to heal Shelby, continue to knit her little body together as you did when she was still in her mother's womb...
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Each Wednesday night we have a communal meal together. We have been advertising it at God's Helping Hands, a redemptive outreach in north Oakland County, for months. Last night we had our first GHH family show up. They were Hispanic and spoke little English. But they came. Several of our members gathered around their table, sat with them, and made the best conversation with them that they could. They welcomed them as though Christ had walked through our doors.
As they left, Linda grabbed them to-go boxes to take some of the homemade lasagna home with them. They told us they would be coming back next week....
To God be the glory.
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Well, that is where I should stop for now. I am sure that there are more things I told myself I would remember, but these will more than suffice. (Most of you probably didn't make it this far anyway!)
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