Here's to you Ma!

Today is mother's day, and happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I'm very thankful for mine, for her constant love and support and encouragment. If you have the chance to talk to yours, let me give you some advice my old high school football coach used to give us every day after practice:

"Go home, kiss your momma, tell her you love her."

So, as they say in the good book, go and do likewise!


P.S. My daughter has played hard with her cousins all weekend long, no naps, just serious playtime. And it's 10pm and she's awake singing in her bed like nothing's been going on. She'll be a little bear tomorrow, but she's having a ball right now just chirping away like a little bird...

Darlin', can I have this dance?

Our campus ministry, the Longhorns for Christ, were in charge of leading our worship service yesterday at church. It was really a great service, I was proud of the ladies and gents who participated, their hard work and preparation was very evident, and I was thankful that I got to be a part of it. One of our interns preached a great sermon about learning to see Jesus in the everyday areas of your life, how easily we can get so caught up in what we're doing that we often don't even notice God's presence with us. He was teaching from Luke 24, the story of Cleopas and another disciple on the walk to Emmaus, when Jesus appears and walks with them and they don't notice him. He also spoke about how sometimes even when we're paying attention, we don't think that God can do much with what we have to offer. Here he used the example from Abraham and Sarah, when God comes to visit disguised as three strangers. Abraham offers them hospitality, and they respond by telling him that he and Sarah will become parents in the next year, to which Sarah laughs --- no way this could happen, right? Wrong. My friend challenged us to think about areas in our life where we're tempted think that God couldn't possibly work, no way He could make something out of our nothing. There's no way he could use a two step to bring someone to His name...is there? That's when he told us about his experience in the school dance club.

Come to find out, he joined this group after being invited by some other folks, and through a series of "coincidences" that really weren't coincidences, ended up discovering some other Christian folks who had also joined the club, with the goal of having a great time dancing, but also to see if God might provide some opportunities for them to reach out to others who don't know him.

So my friend is sharing this from the pulpit and I remember thinking to myself that this was really cool. It's cool that he can share about how God is working in his life, through something that even he thought would NEVER be a way that God would work in his life. I'm also thinking this is cool that he can share this story and in church, and not get thrown out on his keister. I was also thinking that it's really awesome when you get to see ways that God is working in and maturing people all the time.

Lord, thanks that I get to serve you in a church where we can talk about reaching people in your name while we're dancing. Thanks also for your grace in growing us up and teaching us, using things that we might simply look past or, like Sarah, laugh at, and instead you go and do something amazing. Thanks for being a God that is way bigger than I/we can ask or even imagine.