Let’s go for a walk

So, tomorrow I will travel somewhere to participate in The Walk to Emmaus.  I don’t know where I am going, exactly how I am getting there, or what exactly is going to happen.  Hah.  I just made myself laugh when I went to type, “I planned it that way.”  In the midst of not planning I am still planning.  So I’m a planner, alright already!  It was an exercise in will and patience not to ask lots of questions about the weekend.  In fact, I didn’t ask any until my sponsor told me when I needed to be ready to go.  My only question was “Is there anything in particular that I should bring that isn’t obvious?”  The other pieces of information I picked up here and there as people talked abaout their experiences at Emmaus.  Anyway, I am really looking forward to it.  I really feel the need to get away from it all.  I am looking forward to no laptops, cell phones, or watches.  I am looking forward to spirit touching spirit.  I’ll post about it when I get back.  Until then, don’t miss me too much.  Maybe try to cry only once per day.  Riiiiiight.  ; )

1,000 Hits & other random thoughts

I was just checking for comments on my blog and saw to my surprise that I have over 1,000 hits.  That’s significant I think.  It’s kinda crazy that so many folks have perused my thoughts.  Now only if I could say things that would spark more conversation.

I have a new laptop (yay!) and I like it a lot.  It’s a Dell Vostro 1400.  Only problem is sometimes (read more often than not) the ‘v’ key doesn’t work.  I’m not sure if it’s the way my finger hits the key or what but it’s making me a bit crazy.

I found out today that I will definitely be going to the next session meeting to present/answer questions about/etc./????? my Form One.  I am not sure what to expect but I am pretty sure it will go well.  If there is one thing the Navy prepared me for (and there are many to be sure) it’s having oral boards with people asking me all kinds of crazy questions.  Granted they were never personal in nature so that will be an interesting dynamic.

I had two run ins with the law this past week.  Well, kinda.  The first one, I was driving home from a church service/hanging out at a friends house when I see blue flashing lights in my rear view.  How craptastic (to use a phase that J has reportedly coined.  So I turn off on the next street and get my license out.  The police officer comes to my window and says, “Your headlight is out.”  And I swear I heard angels sing.  No ticket, no citation, just friendly assistance.  The second time wasn’t really with the law.  Well, at least not in the same sense.  See, what had happened was…I was at my uncles house which is a bit more in the sticks than where I am.  It’s not far away, but it’s far enough away that the nearest convienence store is “Little Earles.”  (I would link but get this, they don’t have a website!).  When I left his house, I wasn’t headed home, so I had to think about how to get from Point A to Point B.  Well, I failed.  I made a left at Albequerque (spelling?) instead of a right.  And where did I end up?  I Toll Booth with NO CASH.  Great.  And there was no place to turn around.  So I had to fill out this stupod form that I have 7 days to mail off to pay my $2 toll for a wrong turn.  Oh…and then the other $2 for the return trip through the toll so I could go the direction I should have gone to begin with.  That was one expensie wrong turn!  I mean it’s only $4, but for a wrong turn?  Sheesh!

 

 

Dun

Stick a fork in me…I’m dun!

That’s right…the semester is over!  One down and about 9 more to go.  Yikes.  One at a time, Sara!  Sheesh!

I am pooped.  Good night!

Phew

So my to do list has become a bit more manageable.  I can’t let up yet mind you as I have stuff to finish up for one of my classes and the stupid thorn in my flesh writing seminar.  I took my hermeneutics exam today and I think I may have actually done well.  Granted some of that is because the 10 multiple choice questions were open book but that’s only 1/4 of the exam.  Anyway, the only school items that remain on my list are:

1) Finish nine small assignments for my Spiritual Portfolio
2) Write additional paragraph for my writing class paper
3) Schedule party time to take place after Spring Semester.  : )

I don’t know if there will be an actual party, but I would like to do something fun this weekend.  We will see.  A few folks have been talking about road trips the past few days…I am not excited about that in light of gas prices, but there is definitely a sense in which I want to get away.  I am excited about getting to go to Emmaus the weekend after next.  It should be good.

Alas, I am tired.  I ate a big dinner at Olive Garden and had a glass of wine as well.  My bed is calling me. 

Good night.

Mad

I’m so mad and frustrated right now I don’t even know what to do with myself.  I don’t understand what God is doing.  Maybe that’s because it is not God?  Maybe this is part of the spiritual battle?  I don’t know.  I am going to bed.

Things to do: Revised and Updated

1) Voice chat tonight (T -21 minutes) for Spiritual Formation tonight for case study brief.

2) Laundry Praise God I have clean socks now!

3) Finish a dozen nine small assignments for my Spiritual Portfolio

4) Study for and take Hermeneutics final

5) Meeting with Mentor on Saturday morning

6) Finish chapters for meeting with Mentor on Saturday morning

7) Shop for Order Maid of Honor dress for Mom’s wedding

8) Cousin’s birthday party @ the bowling alley

9) Laura Story concert

10) Women’s Appreciation Sunday: I get to speak for 5 minutes on my call to ministry!

11) Prepare notes for 5 minute speech on call to ministry

12) Work an 8 hour day tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and… (ad nauseum minus weekends)

13) Dinner at a friends house on Sunday night

14) Revise Plagiarism Assignment for my writing class

15) Have a revision conference for my Revised Plagiarism Assignment, Monday @ 12pm

16) Write additional paragraph for my writing class paper

17) Walk to Emmaus retreat starting Thursday, May 1st

18) Keep breathing

19) Buy text books for Summer semester: Systematic Theology 1 and Christian Leadership Development

20) Schedule party time to take place after Spring Semester.  : )

It was a dark and stormy night…

I love it when it is stormy out.  It’s the best weather in the world to curl up with a book and read…and fall asleep.  : )  The thunder is the best part.  That’s one thing I miss about Florida.  The consistency of the thunder storms was always something to look forward to.  And then there is the sound of the rain.  I love how it becomes pretty much the only thing you hear.  The dull roar of traffic noise is silenced by the cleansing rain.  It’s like it clears the air along with everything else.

It is late and I have had a good weekend.  Busy, but good.  And I just got a bunch of school work done so that is encouraging.  I still hae a lot to do, but I am glad to put a dent in it!  Just one more week…

It went well

I spoke this morning at church about my call to ministry.  If you’d like to see what I said, go here.  Well, I am happy to say that things went well.  I was more than a little nervous, but not overwhelmingly so.  I didn’t get nervous until service started and then when I put the microphone on it got a bit worse.  And you can’t take deep breaths with a microphone on because they pick up EVERYTHING!!!

When I stood up and headed to the the little podium (we don’t use the pulpit or lecturn during our contemporary services), I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about all those faces looking back at me.  I thought I was going to be overwhelmed.  But I wasn’t.  I think it was actually kind of comforting in a way.  They wanted to hear what I had to say.  Sure, that is probably not true of everyone, but there were expectant faces in thr crown.  No one stood out really…just faces with eyes focusing on me waiting for me to speak.  To speak.  I like speaking.  And I differentiate that from just talking.  Talking is just words to hear ones own voice and to fill up space.  Speaking connotates more of an idea of communicating ideas and thoughts of substance.    So I stumbled over the first few sentences and struggled to gain my confidence, but when I got to certain parts, I was able to break away from my papers a bit more and just speak from my heart.  It was cool. 

The coolest part I think is when it was overe though.  There are two reasons for this…

1) My pastor asked me to pray after I was done speaking as a lead in to worship time worship.  How amazing was that.  It was a little 45 second prayer and I relished in it.  It was exhilirating. 

2) I got a few awesome comments from folks after the service.  Some from people I knew, others from folks I had never met before.  One sticks out.  It was the first one.  A woman in her late 40s early 50s came up to me and said that she wished her daughter had been here to hear what I said.  She told me that she was going through a divorce and it was hitting her daughter, a college freshman, pretty hard.  She started to cry and then told me to tell all the young people my story.  I thanked her for her compliment and tried to be compassionate, but I wish I had something worthwhile to say to her.  She was obviously hurting quite a bit both for her own suffering and that of her daughter.  If I had that interaction to do again, I think I would have responded differently.  None the less, it was a very touching response.

Well, I guess that’s all for now.  I am super tired and might try to shut my eyes for a little bit but I need to transfer my laundry to the dryer before that and then am headed to a friend’s place for dinner.  I really need to get some school work and studying in but that just hasn’t happened.  *sigh*  I really want to finish the semester well…

The Story of the Pink Hammer

This Sunday is Women’s Appreciation Sunday at my church.  I am pretty excited about it because I get to speak for 5 minutes on my call to ministry.  I figured I would share my write up of what I am going to say.  It probably won’t come out this way exactly, and it might be too much information since I only have 5 minutes, but I am going to write my outline from this write up.  Anyway, it is also fitting that I put it up here because it will also explain the title of my blog.  Enjoy!

     A year ago today, I was still in the Navy.  If you had asked me then if I would be where I am in life now, I probably would have laughed at you.  But here I am standing before you a little nervous for sure, but excited to share a little bit of my story with you.

     Brought up in an Agnostic home, I had a general idea that God was some sort of Supreme Being.  I remember this world seeming very complicated to me…all the details of it…the social interactions between people…the messiness of it all.  I moved into adolescence wanting to know who I was and there didn’t seem to be anyone around who knew enough about who they were to help me out.

     I accepted Christ on a camping retreat that I said I wanted to go on because they were going canoeing.  Translation: The Holy Spirit was drawing me to God.  It was December 20th, at 12:20am that I made the decision to follow Christ.  I was 14 years old.  I went to bed assured of my right standing with God.  When I woke up, I went to the camp counselor and said: “I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead” placing myself in the verse he had given me to read the night before.  It was a powerful moment.

     Despite numerous shortcomings on my part, I remained strong in my faith throughout my college years.  I graduated in May 2003 with a degree in English and was commissioned an officer in the Navy the same day.  This day was the best day of my life second only to the day I accepted Christ.

     My time in the Navy can be summed up in two words: exciting and trying.  Two of the greatest things that resulted from this time were the fact that I was able to see a much clearer picture of who I was, and more importantly, who I wasn’t.  Thus I also gained a bit more clarity as to my purpose in this life.  I submitted my letter of resignation to the Secretary of the Navy declaring (from the rooftops if you will) that I was getting out of the Navy to go into full time ministry to “preach the gospel of the saving grace of Jesus Christ who died that we might live eternally.”  Yes, that’s actually what the letter said.  I wonder how many people read it…

          Most recently I realized that much of the discontentedness and anxiety I felt was linked to the restrictions that had been placed on me at the very beginning of my life in Christ: the role of women in the church is restricted to children’s church, women’s ministry, and hospitality.  A born leader, I was told my gifts were not welcome in the church.  Before I walked through the doors of this sanctuary, I had never heard a woman preach.  For over a decade, I attempted to cram myself in a box defined by other people’s ideas of what it looked like to be a woman after God’s own heart.  After much studying, wrestling with God, and quite a few encouraging words from many of you, I decided to let God define that for me. 

     By stepping into the freedom that comes with finding ourselves in Christ, I have been empowered to step out in faith and pursue a Master’s of Divinity and explore the path leading to ordination.  It is a very exciting and overwhelming time for sure and I am so thankful for those of you who have spoken into my life and lifted me up in prayer.

     So where does the pink hammer fit in?  Good question!  As I was writing an assignment for one of my classes, I remembered how my dad used to let me nail scraps of wood together with this very pink hammer.  I hadn’t thought about that little hammer for years!  It was odd to me as this thought seemed to come out of the middle of no where.  And then it dawned on me: I am the pink hammer (Coo coo ca choo).  Being a woman and being used by God to powerfully speak the truth into people’s lives are not mutually exclusive.  They are elaborately intertwined within me because that’s how God made me.  Though many might say that hammers shouldn’t be pink, some are created that way.  So it is with women and preaching.  Some say women shouldn’t be preachers, but there are gifted by God to do just that.

     In light of my journey, I feel I should end with a word for the women in the room: while there will be many people in your life to help you as try to figure out who you are, only God is qualified to define that for you.  The challenge is to let him.  And to that I say, “He who calls you is faithful, He will do it.” (1 thes. 5.24)

Thoughts on justice for gay and lesbian people

In a blog article of an interview with Jim Wallace by Ted Olsen of Christianity Today, he was asked:

In your book, you say the way to ensure civil rights for gay and lesbian people and equal protection under the law for same-sex couples is “civil unions from the state and even spiritual blessings for gay couples from congregations prepared to offer them.”

His response is as follows:

I believe in equal protection under the law in a democratic, pluralistic society. At Focus on the Family, I had this discussion with James Dobson’s policy people, and they basically support equal protection under the law, too. Some would debate whether civil unions are necessary for that, or whether other legal protections are adequate. And that’s a fair discussion.

I don’t think the sacrament of marriage should be changed. Some people say that Jesus didn’t talk about homosexuality, and that’s technically true. But marriage is all through the Bible, and it’s not gender-neutral.

I have never done a blessing for a same-sex couple. I’ve never been asked to do one. I’m not sure that I would. I want churches that disagree on this to have a biblical, theological conversation and to live with their differences and not spend 90 percent of their denominational time arguing about this issue when 30,000 children are dying every single day because of poverty and disease.

There are many of you out there that have dialoged on this issue quite a bit and I am very interested to hear your thoughts on this.  I am trying to figure out where the balance is between truth and grace in this issue and I just don’t have enough personal experience or information to think through this issue fully.