Wonderings and Wanderings

Sorry I’ve not posted for a couple of days.  It has been crazy, whacked out busy but good and rich in blessings.

Tuesday blessings:  Experiencing true undeserved grace from a friend and being reminded of the undeserved grace I receive endlessly from God.  A soul friend who is available to listen and receive me whenever I need him.

Wednesday blessings: My middle school youth playing ultimate frisbee despite the chill.  They rock big time and I love them!  Katherine for buying me a box of KUDOS!! (I say "kudos" a lot and so she thought of me when she saw them in the store! And they are the Shrek kind which are my fav. Props and KUDOS for Katherine!  Liz sharing with me an unexpected blessing from her week. A few hours of uninterrupted retreat with a soul companion was a perfect, unexpected blessing to end one day and start the next!

Thursday blessings: Beautiful and rich conversation with my mom.  Taking my handsome nephew for a stroll on a beautiful spring day.  (by the way – i posted new photos of him today in the "Blake’s Pic" photo album.  Check them out!)  An awesome time of volleyball tonight.  We always have a blast playing and spending time together as a team and as a Common Ground group.  What a blessing CG is to me!  Kudos to Maria who makes my cheeks hurt from laughing so hard!  Getting a flashlight tour of a yet to be completed house that will rock and for the awesome tour guide. Anyone who doesn’t think this house rocks is a gravy dish! Wrapping up the day this way was a complete and unexpected blessing.

How rich am I and how thankful I am for such awesome blessings.  This weekend is going to be SLAMMING with good things and so I will have more to post on that. 

BTW – if you don’t know what "booyah" means, go to www.urbandictionary.com and find out what it means. 

In the meantime, I am pooped from too many late nights so this is it.  I’m outie.

Peace – Melissa

It had been way too long since I walked barefoot in the rain.  But I took care of that today.  I went downtown for lunch with a co-worker and as we walked back to the church, the rain poured.  We had umbrellas but it didn’t help much.  So at Central Bank, I stopped, took off my sandals and made the most of the walk back to the church.  A grand adventure, in deed. Yes – a few stares from people about me barefoot, in a dress, walking in the rain.  But I think they were simply jealous and secretly wishing they were walking barefoot in the rain as well.

I got a super, oober good email from a friend this morning that made my day.  Thanks, padre!

I came home around 9:45 tonight and was greeted with a message on my machine from one of my sophomore girls that said I just had to call her back because she had the best unexpected blessing to tell me about.  I ran (yes, literally ran) to the phone to call her and she definitely had a wonderful, God-saturated unexpected blessing.   Her looking for an unexpected blessing today and then sharing it with me with such enthusiasm created yet another unexpected blessing for me today.   

There is some concern on my part that I am sounding a little "pollyanna" with all my talk about unexpected blessings and that the meter for causing vomitous reactions as you read my posts is dangerously high.  I don’t intend to be and I hope that this is not the case.  In fact, today I also made one of the worst mistakes I’ve made in a very long time and I’m heart-broken over it.  I’m not sure how it is going to turn out but I definitely can’t go back either. Somehow, even in the midst – maybe especially in the midst – I need to look for unexpected blessings even more.  Always, always survey the horizon for God.  Always, always sniff for the scent of Christ upon people, events, feelings, situations, everything.

Right now – I think I smell the scent of Christ on my sheets so I’m going to bed.  (or maybe its the scent of shower-fresh Bounce?  I get the two confused sometimes.)

Peace – Melissa

Tonight at Chi Alpha (our youth worship) I challenged the crew to be looking for "unexpected blessings".  (yes – my youth must suffer through whatever my current passion or interest is. I think they are really grateful that my polka fetish has phased out.)  Anyway – I gave them two homework assignments.  One is to look for unexpected blessings this week.  The other is to share them with me so that we can all be blessed by what we discover as we look with new eyes at the world around us.  The hope being that we see God more because we are looking for God and expecting God to show up – we just don’t know what God will look like.

Today God looked like a Russian girl and a dead bird for me.

1) Russian girl – I was walking at the park and met this girl walking two or three times as we both circled the park in opposite directions.  We’d smile, the next time said "hi", etc.  On the third pass, I was just finishing up with my cell phone (i missed a call and was listening to the message.)  She had her phone in her hand and I made some comment about how sad that on a beautiful day we both have our cell phones with us!  She stopped and turned with body language that indicated she would like to continue talking.  So we visited for a little bit and she had an obvious accent and I thought it was Russian.  So I asked and I was right.  So I tried to impress her with the few phrases I know in Russian and obviously I didn’t say something weird like "I like to kiss dog poo" because she didn’t run the other direction.  We talked and found out she has been here 9 years and has not spoken Russian since she’s been here.   I told her about the Russian Bible Study at our church and she was very interested.  I got her number and info. and will call her this week to help her connect with the Russian group.  Way cool!  Definite unexpected blessing from my walk.  (plus I was able to practice my Russian.)

2) Dead Bird – So the last half of Chi Alpha was spent picking up trash in the parking garage across the street.  Service helps cleanse us of selfishness.  After Chi Alpha I got to my jeep to leave and on my windshield are two items.  1) a note that reads "unexpected blessing!  Love – Chris and Wade" and 2) a dead bird.  How can you fault them when they did their homework?  They found an unexpected "blessing??" and they shared it with me.  Good thing I’m secure in my relationship with them or I might feel like they were trying to tell me something . . .    What happened to the bird?  Well, I carried it to the bush, said a little prayer and tossed it in.   Why?  Because a bird in the bush is worth two in the hand.  (actually – the true phrase is reversed but it didn’t fit my situation so I altered it to suit me.    I don’t fear the literary police.  I did take a picture on my cell phone but I don’t know how to get it from there to here so just ask to see it next time you are with me.

I also realized after a conversation with a friend that I’m slipping back into my old "have to have it all figured out" tendencies.  Don’t want to go back there so surrendering the need to know once again.  Dagnabit.

Peace – Melissa

What a great Saturday from start to finish.  First fever – Spring FEVER!  This afternoon I threw open all the windows and doors and did major spring cleaning (thanks for the motivation, Cari and Mike).  My house looks and smells CLEAN and springy.  Yep – I said "springy".  Spring cleaning is a great feeling once you just settle in and do it.  Of course, it helped that Kailey was hanging out here working online on some projects.  It was great just to have her there and I literally just cleaned around here.  I mean literally – "kailey – lift your feet up"; "kailey – can you move the computer a little to the right", etc.  But I am savoring my home tonight and basking in the freshness of my house.

Second fever – FEVER Pitch.  Tonight after supper with our moms, and my sister and nephew, Kailey and I saw "Fever Pitch".  Cute movie.  We went for ice cream afterwards on this perfect weather night.  Later four of my youth met up with us and that was the big unexpected blessing of the day!!  I love my youth – they rock big time.  We had ice cream outside and talked nonsense.  You know – those conversations where you basically go on and on and tag off of each other about random, pointless things.  My favorite kinds of conversations.  I’m good with pointless conversations.  It was a supreme way to wrap up this Saturday. 

Funny thought today:  I found a book today titled "The Art of Kissing".  My amatuer review: it pretty much sucked.  (hee hee)

Peace – Melissa

Go back and read my "Five Years from Now" post from Wednesday before reading this.  I came across this quote from Mike Yaconelli (big youth ministry guru who died a couple of years ago.)  Thought it was a helpful tag to my thoughts re: the journey and the destination of which I posted about in the five years post.

Being stuck is a great moment. It may be characterized by frustration, loneliness, or detachment, but those things are only the vocabulary of our souls telling us we are in danger. It is the cry of our souls craving for more. It is our longings and yearnings trying to get our attention. It is a summons, a call from within. It is the glorious music of disaffection and dissatisfaction with where we are now. It is the anguish of our interior life pleading with us—not to give up, but to give in. It is the Holy Spirit stopping us dead in our tracks so we can read the words that God has written on our hearts—surrender.

Some beautiful and challenging words.  If you’re feeling "stuck" right now, chew on this for awhile.

Happy Birthday to our Common Ground buddy, Alan!  Just to tell you how much CG rocks – they surprised Alan last night with a birthday celebration at Applebees!  I mean, a true surprise, indeed.   Aren’t CG friends cool?

So – here is a shout out to Alan! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! 

Unexpected blessing of the day:  Walking into the office area and seeing Preston and Cari eating lunch at the back table.  I grabbed my lunch and crashed the party and totally ignored their irritated ("go away") look. 

Two great quotes that I stumbled upon today:
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." – Ghandi
"When you genuinely love and care for people, they’re eventually going to ask you why." – Ed Dobson

Melissa – (currently rocking out to "West End Girls" by Pet Shop Boys)

Just got home from our volleyball game.  Much fun.  We dominate on the court.  Okay – not really.  We did manage to win all the games, however, they were all pretty much close.  So, I can’t really get away with claiming domination.  I can claim great fellowship because that was definitely true. 

I took one for the team tonight.  (honestly – only one and then the kiddos were on their own.) I can’t seem to restrain myself from dropping to my knees to return a serve.  So the wounds from last week’s game were reopened tonight.  It hurt like heck but I didn’t cry and I didn’t curse … out-loud.  I could move this to some spiritual analogy of wounds reopened but I will refrain myself – for your sake and mine.  It is the natural urge of a minister to make everything a spiritual analogy.  Seriously – we use to play a game where someone would mention anything that came to mind and then we would make it have a spiritual reality in some way.  (evidence once again that ministers are freaks and lame).

Spent some brief time with my nephew, Blake, this afternoon.  He is all boy and quite the little stud.  We tell secrets together (well, I tell and he listens since he has not developed verbal skills yet).  He is nearly 8 months now and what a major blessing he has been to our family.

Other than that … it was a cloudy, cool day and I worked at church for a bit and then hit the Y for my workout.  I haven’t posted on the weight progress for awhile.  I am regular in my visits to the Y and really miss it if I’m not able to go.  Ellipticals and Crossramps are my cardio followed by some time on the Nautilus.  Its been about 2 and 1/2 months since I began "the new way of life" (working out, eating right) and I’m down 18 lbs and several inches.  Feeling great and ready for summer.  So, basically I am halfway there.  I would really like to lose another 15 lbs or so and hope (and WILL)  accomplish that by summer.

That’s it for today.  Unexpected blessing of the day: Finally connected with a 4-year old girl from church that I have not been able to get to say "boo" to me. We played tonight at church while her mom played volleyball and had a grand time.  The relationship has begun and I’m pumped for that.  Definite unexpected blessing!  Hope you discovered at least one today too!

Peace – Melissa