Soli Deo Gloria!

Julian the Ninja Warrior

// November 20th, 2008 // Comments Off // General

Julian the Ninja War­rior

Orig­i­nally uploaded by MsRikki

Me: Jules, give me a Ninja pose.

And he obliged.

Indescribable!

// November 18th, 2008 // Comments Off // General

One month ago, I wrote about how bor­ing my life is, and how my son gives me a sense of pur­pose. Well.…while my son is the pri­mary focus, things have def­i­nitely changed.

The day I wrote that post I found out that my old­est friend had passed away after an 8-year bat­tle with breast can­cer. We had been friends since we were 5 years old. I can­not even begin to describe the loss and grief I felt. She truly was the sis­ter I never had. She was the one friend who I could truly be myself with, the one who knew me, under­stood me, and loved me any­way. She has 3 chil­dren who I love like my own, and now I have to honor her by look­ing after them. They won’t be liv­ing with me, but I make sure I stay in close con­tact with them. I can’t replace her in their lives, but I can do my best to make that hole a lit­tle less empty.

Church hap­pen­ings: My church is going through a period of tran­si­tion. In Feb­ru­ary, our pas­tor, Rev. Mau­rice Doss, suf­fered an aneurysm. Since then, the church has kept on, but there is some­thing in the air…some kind of spir­i­tual renewal that is com­ing. When the asso­ciate pas­tors took turns preach­ing each week, as dif­fer­ent as their ser­mons are, the same mes­sage was com­ing from the pul­pit: We need to clean up our act and get back to basics. These mes­sages were not coor­di­nated before­hand. I think we need to straigten up and pay atten­tion. In these months since our pas­tor has been away, I’m notic­ing changes all the time: We’re re-evaluating how we’re doing things, in light of God’s Word. Two areas that I am pas­sion­ate about are the Youth Min­istry and Sun­day School. I am see­ing GREAT changes there. We are about to adopt a truly Reformed cur­ricu­lum which is not watered down or try­ing to be “rel­e­vant”. As a Sun­day School teacher, I asked our pas­tor last year if I could begin going through the West­min­ster Shorter Cat­e­chism with the teens, and he gave his per­mis­sion. This new cur­ricu­lum is going to blend right in with that. Now…it might require more time. The Cat­e­chism study will prob­a­bly have to be moved to a dif­fer­ent day of the week. I’m cool with that. I’ve also been asked to help choose topics/books to study for the whole church. One book that I rec­om­mended in the sum­mer is going to be used in 2009 as a study for the entire church.

Youth Min­istry: We have a new Youth Min­is­ter. Well, not new to the church, but new to the posi­tion. He’s mapped out struc­ture and strat­egy for the Youth Min­istry. In his struc­ture, there are plenty of posi­tions that need to be filled so that the strat­egy can be imple­mented effec­tively. I have been name as the Dis­ci­ple­ship Direc­tor, which means that I will be respon­si­ble for what they learn, as well as for explain­ing and pro­vid­ing ways for them to live out their Chris­tian­ity in tan­gi­ble and God-glorifying ways. So I get to check out books, come up with ideas, and imple­ment new things to point the youth in the right direc­tion. One thing I def­i­nitely want to do is to start a small group for the girls in my home (when I move in early 2009, yet another change!) and to encour­age one of the godly men to begin one for the boys.

Just this past Sun­day, my pas­tor came back to preach. Every­one was over­joyed! We had one ser­vice instead of two, since he’s not strong enough. You could just feel the joy, thanks­giv­ing and expec­ta­tion in the atmos­phere. It was so won­der­ful to see him in the pul­pit again. He preached, and his voice and mind were just as they had been. How­ever, at the end of his ser­mon, he ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion, cit­ing health issues. He did not name the issues, but from the words he used, I clearly under­stood that they were seri­ous. He said that he did not want to be a part-time pas­tor, and based on how he had pas­tored before his ill­ness, I can cer­tainly under­stand that. He’s been the pas­tor for 25 years, 22 of which I’ve been a mem­ber. He’s well respected and well loved. It was a sad day.…because he was not just resign­ing. He was say­ing goodbye.…as if he knows his time here is short. I still don’t feel right. But I am con­fi­dent that his past lead­er­ship and trust in God has got­ten our church to where it is now, and I am even more con­fi­dent that God will lead us on where to go from here. I believe all of these changes, the sweet and not-so-sweet, will work out for our good. I’m grate­ful to God that I can be a part of it.

On the work front: I stared my job as a temp in August 2007. From the begin­ning my super­vi­sor liked my work. So much so that she fought to make my posi­tion per­ma­nent. I was offi­cially hired in March 2008. At my six-month review, she encour­aged me to become part of the Qual­ity Assur­ance Com­mit­tee, which over­sees stan­dards and prac­tices, eval­u­ates out­comes, and sug­gests changes. I joined it, and now she wants me to be the chair­per­son of the com­mit­tee. She told me today that I have lead­er­ship skills and that this would be great for my per­sonal and pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment. I had my doubts, because every­one on the com­mit­tee has been here longer than me. She said she would help me and point me toward the train­ing I need. Our next meet­ing is two days from now.…and it appears that the job is mine. More respon­si­bil­ity, but def­i­nitely not bor­ing!

In the midst of all of this, I got a let­ter stat­ing that my extremely old, but unpaid stu­dent loans were out of del­i­quency! I had been going through loan reha­bil­i­ta­tion since March. It was sup­posed to be for six months, but in the midst of all the other things going on in my life, I had totally for­got­ten about it. Now I am eli­gi­ble for more finan­cial aid, and I plan to take advan­tage of it. So prayer­fully, in 2009, I will be going back to school to begin study­ing for a B.A. in Media and Pro­fes­sional Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

30 days. All of this hap­pened within 30 days. I can no longer say my life is pur­pose­less. I can no longer say I’m bored. I most cer­tainly do not think that all of this is a coince­dence; I know that it’s because the Lord heard me. He is AWESOME, and I am hum­bled that He is even mind­ful of me!