never been here before

Friday was a pretty awful day, with a garbage disposal failure (plumber can't come until NEXT THURSDAY and I will be out of town) and the discovery of a major leak in my drip system. After the week I had, it just made sense this will all happen to me yesterday. Tuesday I had the women's book club to set up and run. I was up all night Monday worrying about it, as it was the first time I'd done this kind of thing and it was very new for this church and this culture. I was getting asked on Monday, "Where do we get the book" "Do we come with it read?" After I'd been advertising for two months. Ugh. People are frustrating.  Tuesday went fine but was very stressful. Wednesday was another stressful day with two unexpected meetings eating up my morning and Wednesday night's class not quite prepped yet. By the end of class that night I was done for, so when two young women in the class asked to be let back into the church while I had an armful of cla...

This last week was a very frustrating and difficult time for me. There was a big event going on at church. It was not one I was in charge of, but one in which I was more of over-seer and a support of a volunteer who was in charge. It was a week full of complaining (you get that a lot when you're on the staff of a church) quite a few truths stretched and spome back-biting and gossip I just don’t appreciate. All in all, I'm really glad the week is over.  So as I sat down to write the next post in the waters project, I found myself... dry. I had a week full of so many "to-do" lists and so much chaos that I barely had time to breathe and be refreshed. I worry that one day I will forget how.  Forget to breathe. Forget to slow down. Just... forget. So what I am to do? I t am I to do about a week that I know God caused waters to flow, but I neither had the presence of mind nor the heart to see it? The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit...

Thomas is the first person I've ever hired. I didn't do it by myself - I put together a committee of four people to help write the job description, go through resume submissions and then ultimately interviews and the hiring. We could only afford to hire a part-time youth director, so we knew it would be tough to find the right person. Thomas was that person. As I was on my way to Starbucks Saturday morning (I managed to wake up with sun at 5:30 on my “day off” – though I spent most of the day working on VBS) and I hit the stop light just outside my subdivision and there he was to my right in his little red car… heading the same direction as me. Thomas has always been an early riser, so I wasn’t too surprised to see him out and about. He waved at me, and when we stopped at the next stop light together, he laughed and smirked, undoubtedly hearing my Mumford and Sons music blaring. Early in the morning in Arizona, you relish having your windows down because of the cool weather....

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Some days I feel like I have my hand in just about every area of the church (which I guess is bound to happen in a church our size - 500 - when you and the senior pastor are the only full-time ministry staff) Last night I did one of the staples since I took this job – family movie night. Last week I had a helper in children's church who was telling me about how she was about to start meeting with the Jr. High girls part of the Seeds of Hope ministry - a ministry in town that seeks to provide opportunities and help to those in poverty and/or challenging home situations. She asked if one of the mission projects she could do with the girls was come and help with movie nights this summer. I love the Seeds of Hope ministry, and I love Debbie, so my answer was an immediate yes.  So last night Debbie and the girls arrived about an hour before the movie to help me set up the room, pop popcorn and get the sodas ready for the concession stand. I already knew 3 or the 4 girls she broug...

When I lived in St. Louis, I grew very tired of the rain. The humidity I could deal with, (sort of) having grown up in the mid-west. It's never pleasant, but it is simply part of living there. But the rain in St. Louis? But the time I graduated I was over it. God has a great sense of humor; because of course after that experience with the rain he put me in the desert. It's been here that I've realized just how much I am emotionally affected by the physically environment around me. Some of what I’m experiencing right now – inside – I’m sure is due to my season of life and the calling I’ve received in my vocation. As these two aspects of my life collide, I find myself in fear of remaining “in the desert” so to speak – in a place of dry bones, of a dry heart and a dry soul. So I am beginning a new writing project that I hope will inspire me and turn me from the desert growing inside my restless soul. I’m calling it the “he caused waters to flow” project. While it do...