Infinitely More

This Sunday, Creek Student Ministries took over the normal Sunday morning service at Eagle Creek. It was pretty awesome. Anna Wolfe, Jodie Wolfe and Lauren Liberty did a sign language drama that was incredible, Andy Stewart (Stew to those who know and love him ) gave his incredible testimony and I got to speak.

What was most amazing to me was not just that God touched peoples lives - people responded left and right to the call of Jesus this Sunday and hearts were touched and changed by God. But it wasn’t anything I did. What was so cool is that God used students in a very real way to reach people who needed him. He used teenagers to make a difference in the lives of mature, responsible, got-it-all-together adults. I love that! It doesn’t matter if you are 13 or 19, God can do things with your life and with your talents that you would never expect. I love how Ephesians 3:20 puts it:

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or hope. (Eph 3:20)

That’s about you, ya know? God can do more with your life than you could ever imagine on the craziest of nights. What is the greatest thing you could ever hope to accomplish in your life? God could do more…

Ducal

My 2 year old son, Calvin, has invented the coolest word in the world. My kids have this little pop-up alphabet book that they love to read. Every letter has a page with a bunch of little windows that open up, and on the “R” page there is a window that slides open to reveal a little cartoon drawing of a robin. It is fat and round and dumb looking – a cartoon from a kids book. I don’t know what part of his brain came up with this word, but Calvin decided that the bird was a ducal.

Ever since then, I can’t stop saying the word ducal! Everything I see is ducal related. For lunch I ate a ducal sandwich. If Calvin makes a funny face it is a ducal face. In fact I keep telling him that he is a ducal.

“No, I’m not a ducal. I’m Calvin!” he yells back at me. Whatever. It’s a ducal world now. We just live in it.

DUCAL!

Chinese Ear Torture

So last Thursday I start to feel like the common cold is creeping up on me: I'm tired, my head hurts, my throat hurts and my right ear is starting to close up. I hate that feeling, by the way. I feel so helpless when my ear is clogged and I can't pop it. I'm walking around trying to yawn, making the craziest faces in the world, trying to contort my ear canal into releasing the pressure in there. Nothing worked. By 5 pm I was miserable. By 8 pm I was doing everything I could think of to make the pain go away. By 10 pm I was in my car going to the emergency room.
The doctor took one look in my ear and said, "You have a roaring ear infection." This is weird to me because I don't really remember the last time I had an ear infection - probably as a kid, but who knows. All that to say I have been experiencing what my normal doctor calls, "The worst ear infection he has ever seen in an adult." Yay!

I could gross you guys out with stories of blood dripping out of my ear non-stop onto my pillow at night or of my reaction to the super hardcore antibiotics they gave me ( I threw up 10 times in 5 hours), but I will spare you the gory details to let you know that I am miserable right now. I have had several of those moments where I say, "God, why don't you just heal me already? You could do it with a word...with a thought...with a sneeze!" I DO know that God's goodness doesn't change based on my circumstances - or the perforated state of my ear drum. The same God who has blessed me with everything good in my life is the same God who is going to carry me through this dumb ear infection.

...but it did feel kind of good to whine about it a little bit there.

Jesus Prayed for Me Today

I read my Bible every day. Usually it is, well…like reading the Bible. It’s all good stuff and it’s all worth knowing so I try to lock as much of it in my brain as possible. But every once in a while I’ll read something that punches me right in the face – a verse or passage that totally connects with me for whatever reason.

I had one of those moments last night when I was reading John 17. It is right after the last supper and Jesus and his disciples are all still sitting around the table having a post-meal chat. At the end of meal Jesus wraps everything up with a prayer. I was reading through this when John 17:20 pops up: I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me because of their testimony.

Jesus prayed for me. Two thousand years ago at the last supper, the night before he was arrested and finally killed, Jesus prayed for me. And for you. He prayed for every one of us who follow him today. It blows my mind that I was on his mind even then and that he prayed specifically for me – for us. So as I read the rest of this passage, I imagined what this prayer really meant for me as Jesus sought God the Father on my behalf:

My prayer is not for the world, but for Chris, because he belongs to you…During
my time here, I have kept him safe. I guarded him so that he would not be lost. I have given him your word. And the world hates Chris because he does not belong to the world, just as I do not. I’m not asking you to take him out of the world, but to keep him safe from the evil one. Chris is not a part of this world any more than I am. Make him pure and holy by teaching him your words of truth. As you sent me into the world, I am sending Chris into the world.

My prayer for Chris is that he will be one, just as you and I are one, Father – that just as you are in me and I am in you, so he will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me. I have given Chris the glory you gave me, so that he may be one as we are – I in him and you in me, all being perfected into one. (John 17:9-19)

How does it sound when you put your name in there?

Flashlight Pain

I don't know if anyone can sympathize with this, but I HURT! At the flashlight war on Friday night I belly crawled all the way across that huge field to capture the other team's guard. To my credit, I did (after terrifying Collin by sticking my fingers through the eye-holes of the terrifying George W. Bush mask he was wearing in order to rip it off his face). But today I wake up with pains in muscles I didn't even know I had. Combine that with the fact that I couldn't play ultimate frisbee for more than 30 seconds without having to stop for some oxygen and you would have to come to the conclusion that I am in crummy shape.

Gotta get my swimsuit bod on for summer. Look out Brad Pitt - I'm coming for ya.