Wednesday, August 16, 2006

VERY RANDOM THOUGHTS

  • SIMPLICITY:
  • About 15 of us squeezed into my friend Alan's office this past Sunday. He had a huge dry erase board filled with a schedule of worship songs slated for the next few weeks. In the middle of the board I saw **SPLIT THE PRODUCER**. I couldn't follow the conversation because my mind just kept wondering what deep meaning **SPLIT THE PRODUCER** held. I finally could contain myself no longer and asked. Both Alan and his beautiful wife, Kelly, with animated expressions, slapped one hand down on the other and gleefully said, "Split the producer!!!" I knew it! Their reactions set me up for some great explanation. But I learned that it only meant that Alan was considering hiring two people to share the one producer job opening that he had.
  • Last night my daughter came in to chat after I was already in bed. She told me that I needed to see this one shelf at our pastor's house because it held almost every book she had read or was going to read off a book list she created. She said that "Pilgrim's Progress" was there, which was of interest because we had gone to the library on Monday to borrow it. I had told her it might be difficult reading. Last night she told me she wasn't finding it difficult to read. I said perhaps I had difficulty because it was a high school reading assignment and I wasn't a Christian and the teacher had all these long assignments that went along with the read. My daughter replied, "How complex can it be? All the characters have names like Evangalist, Obstinate, and Pliable. When he meets Mr. Worldly Wisdom, you KNOW something bad is going to happen." That made me laugh for a long, long time.
  • I guess some things are as simple as they seem, like "SPLIT THE PRODUCER", or that the world needs to be rescued and that Jesus is the Rescuer and if you aren't rescued yet, you need to be.


COMMUNION:
Two weeks ago last Sunday, I had communion twice in one day. First at Alan's church, which I had set off to on a sort of pilgrimage to set my heart right with God on a few things. Then later that afternoon at the first meeting of my new church. There was that moment, at both communions, when you are asked to search your heart and settle issues between you and God. I took those moments very seriously. I also wondered if there was a rule about participating in communion more than once a day.
Last night I was on my way to a gathering. On the way there, I saw a man watering his driveway. Now, I did check to see if maybe he was cleaning debris off his drive, but no, it seemed that he was standing there watering his driveway. I wondered what kind of person waters their driveway?
As the gathering was getting ready to start, a bleached-blonde with dark roots loudly called out, "Hey pastor! Remember me?!!" All eyes turned to look at her. I thought, "There is a heart that longs to be noticed." The pastor announced that he did remember her. Then he said that we would be sharing in communion. This would be the 4th time in 10 days that I had been invited to the communion table.
When it came to that moment right before, that moment to examine, I realized that earlier in the day I had left a comment on someone's blog about that fact that I had ended friendships when I had been lied to. A few hours after I posted my comment, I was thinking of a friend who needed forgiveness. And God reminded me of my careless comment. He asked me if I thought lying was beyond forgiveness? He let me know that my comment might encourage another to harden their heart against someone who needed forgiveness. He was right and I repented. I thought it might be prudent for myself and the rest of the world if I just duct taped my mouth. But then I realized that those kinds of thoughts come from my heart and is it possible to duct tape a heart?

Anyway, I was pretty happy that God had already taken care of all this before the communion moment of examination. The pastor was reading scriptures about communion and his translation read, "...and whenever you do this, you proclaim the death of Jesus Christ!" Or simply put, we proclaim the Rescue by the Rescuer! I thought of the man watering his driveway, and the bleached-blonde whose heart was crying out to be noticed, and me, the woman whose heart needed to be duct taped....all of us, needing rescue by the Rescuer!
When I went back to my seat, God whispered into my ear, "Will you follow Me?"
"Yes!" I breathed. "With all of my duct-taped little heart!!!"


13 comments:

Peta said...

Great stories! About the repentance... I just experienced something amazing!

These past few days it just felt like I couldn't stop sinful thoughts coming through my head...so I asked some people to pray for me, they did... the other night, I had a terrible dream about how I can end up if I don't stop my thoughts. In my dream, I was really a trash. I woke up, early in the morning and the dream seemed as real as I couldn't forgive myself the things I've done in it. I couldn't fall asleep with that guilt. So I turned the light on and memorized Romans 12:9-21 which are one of my favorite verses to read. It didn't say anything about forgiveness, I know. But it said "love each other like brothers and sisters". What a simple advice that every Christian knows! I was suddenly able to discern what really happened and what did not and what I really believed was right. I went to bed again and when I woke up...I felt forgiven for all the sins I had done in the past few days! :)) What an amazing grace.

Margie said...

It was my blog you made that comment, and you thought it was about hardening a heart, and maybe that was your intention, but really that is not how I took it. I felt like I wasn't alone, I am having issues with someone who stole from me and then keeps lying about it. I felt like you knew my heart and that I wasn't alone.

Great blog today. And maybe God knew you needed communion a lot lately, He was opening a door for you.

KayMac said...

CORRECTION TO POST: My daughter makes a new reading list every year so the shelf in my pastor's house only contained books from her most recent list. A shelf containing every book she has every read or wanted to read would probably wrap around the world several times.
TO BECKY: I am part of the church plant team. I will send you an email.
TO PETA: Thanks for sharing this. God's word is so totally powerful and amazing. Vicki Sue and I were just saying how glad we are that God has brought us into your life and you into ours!!!
TO MARGIE: I am glad you felt like you weren't alone. I guess what God was confronting was in me....my ability to harden my heart and withhold grace. I hate to be lied to. Stealing and being lied to all at once? Yikes. Hard, difficult issue. Thank you for sharing your heart and being so vulnerable and authentic. I really like that. Also, how did yesterday go???

JT said...

you are just great. xoxo

Peta said...

Kathy: oh, thanks :) *blushes* I'm so grateful for you, too!! :))

Peta said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Peta said...

Tak jsem si myslela, že bude legrace když tu napíšu něco česky. To není fér, že mluvíme pořád jenom anglicky. Tak ja tě něco naučim, jo? Řekni:

Jsem úžasná Američanka.[sam oo-žusn-aa umari-czunka]. Promiň, Zach by to pro tebe asi uměl napsat líp než já.

A schválně můžeš hádat, co to znamená, jo? :)

zatím se měj, jsi skvělá :)

Peta

Peta said...

ok, I decided that you've been wondering long enough what I wrote to your blog :) Here's the translation :)

So I thought it would be fun if I wrote something Czech here. It's not fair that we speak only English all the time. So, I'm gonna teach you something, OK? Say:

Jsem úžasná Američanka.[sam oo-žusn-aa umari-czunka]. Sorry, Zach would be able to write it better for you than I do.

And you can guess what that means, OK? :)

take care in the meantime, you're great :)

Peta


p.s. I hope you're not angry with me for writing a bit of Czech...I apologize if you are :((

KayMac said...

Peta! What a great idea!!!!! I am excited to start learning your language! thank you.

Peta said...

haha, great :))

KayMac said...

Peta, Here is my guess:
I am an American
So...what is the correct answer???

Peta said...

you almost got it!!

Jsem = I am
úžasná = amazing (for a female)
Američanka = American (also just for a female)

So, "I'm an amazing American" :)
We don't have articles in Czech.

Have you ever taken some French classes? I haven't - but I think that "ž" is pronouced the same as "J" in the French word "J'aime" ("I love")

good job!! :)

p.s.: If you say "jsi" [pronouced as a short "c"] instead of "jsem", then the sentence will mean "you are an amazing American". So, after you wake up tomorrow, you can tell that to Rachel, haha :)

KayMac said...

OK Peta, This is going to be fun. I think you should teach US ALL your language, so every week I want to post a sentence or phrase or series of words that you have picked out and we will all guess. I am going to email you about this, ok?