man, what a great weekend it was! friday was THE moving day for the roommate and i. a few of our wonderful friends came over after work to load up trucks and take stuff over. the most amazing part was that it only took us one trip to get everything! i don't mind the moving part so much as the packing and unpacking. when you live in a house for two years (or longer) you definitely start to accumulate things that don't necessarily have a place, but you just make a place and then get accustomed to seeing it there. moving allows you to see through a new set of eyes (eyes that say 'i don't need you crap') and get rid of items that you were hanging onto 'just in case.' <take a deep breath> purging junk is like that... refreshing :)
saturday morning was spent at the jcrew warehouse
i had to quickly run home from the sale to quickly meet up with uma peeps to go rappelling. we led a group our to our signature spot on the parkway, ravens roost. with us were two sisters named raven and malia as well as their brother, jr, and tweety and phoenix. tweety and jr are regulars to the group but the girls are who juli and i have been praying to be able to reach out to for such a long time. the lord opened doors for us to do that last thursday and we've been so giddy ever since. i know it may still be a struggle at times but i pray with all my heart that their maker brings them to a point where they know and love him as their father and delight in living a new life surrendered to his awesome plan. fear is huge in their culture but i think what makes it so huge isn't the fear itself but the lack of trust. i take for granted that i had two loving parents who taught me that early on. when i was little and my daddy said 'jump' i knew he would be there to catch me. i doubt any of our kids have grown up with that. it's more of a 'everyone i know is just looking out for themselves so i just look out for myself' mentality. malia was the most brave and, with a big grin, backed right over that edge. we were all shocked but it was awesome. raven was really scared - she had her harness on and was all clipped in and backing up towards the edge and froze. i've said this before and i'll say it again, one of the things that i love and admire most about james, juli, and uma is that the lessons that come to each kid from an experience or facing a fear are way more important that anything else, including our time. sitting there with the child for a very long time and talking them through their fear shows them that the steps they've already taken to get to this point are important, what they are about to do is important and most of all, they are important. when better to have a discussion about fear than when they are strapped to a rope about to stick their tush out over a 90' cliff? eventually everyone who strapped in went down and it was just incredible - i am SO proud of each of them! i also met a new friend, hillary, who's begun helping us out with trips. i look forward to getting to know her better and see how the lord uses us in each others lives.
i visited a new church on sunday morning to witness one of my co-workers getting baptized. wow. what an amazing baptism service. i'd never seen someone other than a pastor baptize so it was a little different to see fathers, mentors, and other family members baptizing. at first i focused on questioning if this was a biblical method or not but i'm pretty sure that wasn't what God wanted me to dwell on during my time there. one of the first to get baptized was a young girl, about the age of 9. she stepped up into the tub as her family surrounded her. with her daddy kneeling down by her side and holding her hand tightly, he began to share his little girls' testimony with the church. more than just emotional (i still get the chills when i remember it), it was an awesome showing of this dad's involvement in his children's spiritual lives. before his church and family, he was boasting in what God was doing through his daughter and i think that so beautifully portrays how a christian family should be. without saying it, he was publicly vowing to do his part in raising his children in their faith. tears definitely escaped my eyes as she came back up from under the water and jumped into her dad's arms for a huge bear hug. a number of other people were baptized and then my co-worker came up to share his testimony. i've had the opportunity to talk with him at work throughout the past few months as he's been in this awful, dark pit in his life. it took him a while to see it but eventually the fog started to clear and he began to see God's hand reaching down to him and as he put it in his testimony, "it'd always been there, just waiting for him to reach up and grab it." well the testimony was beautiful, but that's not what i was thinking as he shared. he was very honest about the wrong decisions he's made, his pending divorce, and how he's failed as a father and husband. he shared in details that made me sink low in my chair and cringe on the inside. 'why did you have to share that?' <cringe> 'why couldn't you have kept the story generic without sharing the details?' it wasn't long before God started tugging on my heart with a gentle reminder of who he is. he was like, 'why do you want him to use the flowery words that you've always used?' 'isn't it awesome that i can save someone such as him..and you?' my eyes were opened to the realization that i've always seen church as a place to hide your sins before entering the door. but that's so not what God's all about. he wants me to see my sin for the nastiness that it is, and then turn and praise him for being the only one that can turn it white as snow. and that's exactly what my friend was doing up there. he wasn't boasting in his former life, he was boasting in his God who healed and transformed him, his God who literally pulled him up from the dark, scary pit and placed his feet on solid ground. he'd found a church family who made him feel comfortable sharing where he'd been so they could praise God for where he'll bring him. that's what made it beautiful.
