Sunday, March 21, 2010

Spring Break

It won't be much of one, but we'll take a little break and go to Huntsville, Alabama to see Kedra's parents for a few days. Ben is going to Washington D.C. on a school trip, so it will just be three of us heading south.

I enjoying being in Alabama. I usually relax pretty well. I'm taking my Kindle, my computer, running clothes, and my bike. That ought to do it. I hope to read a bunch (downloaded a new book this morning), run a lot, and ride some. The time will pass quickly.

Luke left a little while ago. I always hate to see him leave. He is such a delight to be around. We're going to stop in Nashville and see him on our trip home in a few days. He hopes to intern at Crane this summer but he has not heard anything yet. We're hoping the announcments will be soon and will include Luke as one of the interns. Otherwise he is going to be scrambling to find a job for the summer.

Told this story this morning:

A boy comes home and doesn’t see his mom is visiting with their preacher. He holds a rat in his hand. “Mom, you’ll never guess what. There was a rat running around behind the garage. I saw it and threw a stone and hit it. It just laid there, so I went over and stomped on it. Then I picked it up and threw it against the wall as hard as I could. And I picked it up and threw it again.” Then he sees that the preacher is there and that if looks could kill, he would be a dead kid. He holds the rat high in the air and adds in a pious voice, “And then the dear Lord called him home.”

I was talking about how we all are fakers a fair amount of the time, perhaps especially in the church context. God has called us to be real, genuine, authentic, etc. I shared this quote from a book I just finished by John Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be:

There is an old hymn that includes the lines, “Just as I am, without one plea.” This song speaks of coming to God without hiding, knowing that I am loved simply as a gift. A few people in my life allow me to relate to them “just as I am,” and I cling to them the way a drowning man clings to a raft. If ever there were a true “just as I am” church, if ever there were a community where everybody could bring all their baggage and brokenness with them without neat and tidy happy endings quite yet, if ever there was a group where everyone was loved and no one pretended — we could not make enough room inside the building.

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