Every Time I Play Pool I Think Of...

...Donald Duck!

Can anyone guess why? If you've ever shot a game with me, I probably mentioned Donald at least once.

It's because when I was in tenth grade, my geometry teacher showed us the animated feature "Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land!" Mathmagic Land, for those who don't know, is a land of great adventure, a wonderland of mathematics. While in Mathmagic Land, Donald learns all about the angles in three cushioned billiards. I think about those angles every time I play pool in the youth room or anywhere. Not that it ever helps my game, but I feel a little bit smarter because I know about the angle thing.

There's also some awesome stuff about Pythagoras, music, architecture, pentegons and flowers, chess, sports, lenses, 3D shapes and so much more.

(Spoiler Alert) The narrator ends the movie by saying, "Mathematics is the alphabet with which God has written the universe."

Oh, I wish I enjoyed math in practice as much as I do in theory and in mathmagic land!

You can watch the three parts of this wonderful movie on YouTube:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

10 Things In My Purse

Ten things in my purse (in no particular order)

1. Approximately 237 tubes of lip gloss and lip balm

2. Ponytail bands

3. Super bouncy ball with a swirled design

4. Aleve, Tylenol and Advil (take that, back pain!)

5. Change purse I got from Ten Thousand Villages

6. GermX

7. Stack of (probably expired) coupons

8. All kinds of "membership" cards (library, red cross, vertical excape, etc.)

9. Chocolate Oatmeal bar

10. Pedometer (yes, that should be on my waist)

AHA!

Last night at youth group, we were studying John 4 together. We've been walking through John's Gospel together for the past few weeks. The Gospel was written so that we "might believe that Jesus is the Christ and in believing have life in his name." (John 20:31) John 4 is the account of Jesus meeting the woman at the well in Samaria (why, yes! I did blog about that recently!). We had a great discussion about living water and true worship.

As we were finishing up our discussion, we had this conversation:

Stephen: "You know, it's interesting that the woman wasn't going to the well to find Jesus...she was just going for water."

Me: (I can't remember what I said. No doubt it was brilliant...or maybe I just rephrased what Stephen said, since that's my usual method.)

India: "Hey! Yeah, she was just going to get water. She wasn't even looking for God."

Me: "Right! So--"

India: "She was just getting WATER and then JESUS found HER." (I wish I could inject the expression on her face and the excitement in her words into what I just wrote.)

Me: "I guess that's like us sometimes, right? I mean, we aren't really paying attention to God or looking to find God in our day to day activities and then WOW. GOD."

India: "YEAH!"

One of my favorite things as a youth director is when someone in the room actually GETS what we're talking about. I mean, our group has a lot of smart people who usually understand what we're talking about and they usually have some good things to say about what we're talking about, but I LOVE that moment when one of the students has an AHA! moment with the Scripture. That's what was happening with India--she'd understood the passage until that moment, but now she really GOT it.

There's truth in her discovery. Many times it's not us who find Jesus, but rather Jesus who finds us. We go about our daily tasks not really expecting anything extraordinary. We may not be drawing water at a well, but we're eating lunch in a cafeteria, running laps in PE, hanging pictures on a bulletin board, cleaning the art room, preparing the multimedia presentation for Youth Group...

These are things we have to do. We may even dread doing some of them--I really dislike cleaning the art room, actually. Sometimes, though, even when we're not bothering to make room or allow for the possibility, Jesus meets us and that mundane moment can become life-changing. I can think of many instances in my life where an ordinary moment became extraordinary when Jesus showed up.

It's Monday. Mondays often feel...well, like Monday. Here's hoping that in the midst of this day, God will find us.

And Now It's Time For A Random Story

When I was 15 years old I got my driver's permit. The rule in Indiana was (is?) you could get your permit when you were 15 if you were enrolled in a driver's education class. I enrolled in the class and got my permit. My parents had let me drive a small amount--parking lots, country roads, but I really didn't have any experience before my first driving lesson.

To complete the class, I had to have 6 hours of driving time with an instructor. We had to schedule these sessions and they usually included other students. It snowed on the day of my very first driving lesson (It was December in Northwest Indiana so the odds of snow were good). The instructor picked me up and informed me that we had to go pick up another student. "We'll just shoot down I65," he explained. "Um...see...I've never really driven before..." I stammered. "Oh, you'll be fine!" he exclaimed! "But, I mean, I've never actually driven on I65," I tried again. Turns out he was a bit of a smart alec. "See, Becky, what we're doing here is teaching you how to drive. You're about to learn how to drive on I65."

So away we went. I was shaky and probably went slower than the minimum speed limit, but we made it to get the other kid and I finished my first driving lesson and my driving partner took over and dropped me off at my house (and then had back onto 61st Avenue, so I guess he got a good trial by fire kind of lesson, too!). I eventually took my five other driving lessons. In lesson 5, my instructor taught me how to flip off drivers who make me mad--a skill I don't actually use, in case you were wondering.

Jonas asked me the other day about taking my driving test. "How many times did you have to take it?" He asked. "I only had to take it once," I replied. Oh, I remember how nervous I was for both parts of the test--written and driving. Don't tell my examiner, but I never actually perfected that parallel parking thing. The important thing is that I was able to fake it well enough to pass on June 18, 1994.

That makes me feel really old. I've been driving for nearly half of my life! It's amazing how second nature it is to me. Getting on and off an interstate is easy. Parking a giant church van is (usually) a piece of cake. Snow, ice, rain, fog--I've driven in all of them many times successfully. Only a few accidents behind me and none of them actually my fault. My last ticket was 10 years ago.

I think my slightly profane driving instructor would be proud.

VBS Publicity Photo Shoot

It's really good to have friends who don't care to take ridiculous pictures with your VBS props as you start to get ready to get the word out about VBS 2010 (June 1-4)!


Arrgh, Vallerie! You make a good pirate, matey!

Healing Water

As Lent continues and I continue on my Lenten Water challenge, I am mindful of those who do not have clean water and those who suffer with diseases because the water they drink is unsafe. Many diseases are caused by lack of access to clean water.

Jesus was no stranger to disease and physical troubles. We know many stories of healing that came when Jesus encountered people who were sick, physically disabled or even dead.

In John 5, Jesus is in Jerusalem on the Sabbath. We read that he encountered many who were lame or paralyzed. There at the Sheep Gate in Beth-zatha lay a man who had been ill for 38 years. That's the entire span of my husband's life and back in those times, 38 years was practically a lifetime!

Scripture says that Jesus saw the man lying there and "knew that he had been there a long time (v. 6)." Jesus asks the man, "Do you want to be made well?" The man indirectly answers the question by replying that he has no one to place him in the water. How can he make it in time to take his turn when it takes him so long to get there?

This man may have hoped that Jesus would wait with him and put him in the healing waters when it's time. But Jesus does something even better and more surprising.

"Stand up, take your mat and walk."

Verse 9 tells us that at Jesus' words, the man was made well, picked up his mat and began to walk.

Sometimes at Jesus' words, we may find healing. Sometimes we witness miracles that can only be explained by God's intervention into human lives. This is the healing the man in John 5 found. It's an exciting story of Jesus' power! There are many people in our world who are crying out for healing and hope even right now.

Sometimes, the miracle comes when help each other reach the pool. I think about this man, lying for 38 years, hoping for healing from a pool of water. Alone with no one to help him get to a place of healing and wholeness. How sad, really, that no one helped him.

To some people in our world, clean water itself would be a miracle. We may take it for granted because it flows freely from several taps and sinks in each of our houses. We may even fuss that our water's not clean enough and buy bottled water, which is relatively cheap and easy to get at the grocery store. But the fact remains that for millions of people worldwide, clean water seems unobtainable.

Too many people are dying from diseases that are caused by their water sources. For these people, waters with special healing powers are not the answer. The answer is much simpler: clean water. Organizations like the Blood:Water Mission are working to bring clean water to communities that currently only have access to water that is unclean and unfit for human consumption.

When we support these organizations, we bring brothers and sisters around the world to a pool, a fountain, a well of clean water so that they may no longer struggle and deal with the diseases and health issues that plague them. They are not physically paralyzed, but they are unable to obtain this healing on their own.

Sometimes Jesus uses his words to heal and sometimes Jesus uses his church. I want to be a part of that.

What About Bottled Water?

Presented by Online Education

38 Things

Today is Jason's 38th birthday!

Happy birthday to my best friend! It's a day when we celebrate how OLD SPECIAL he is! I'm so glad that he is so much older than me another year older!

When we were first in love and first married, I would tell him that I loved him and he would ask, "What do you love about me?" So here are 38 things I love about Jason (in no particular order):

1. He is a wonderful father.

2. He is so incredibly goofy and he can always, always, always make me laugh (even when I really don't feel like laughing).

3. He loves puns.

4. He knows how to laugh at himself and doesn't mind making jokes about himself if it makes someone else feel better.

5. He shovels the driveway of the elderly woman across the street.

6. He likes my cooking.

7. He knows how to make awesome lego creations, awesome play doh creations, and he's really good at coloring.

8. He sends me messages to tell me he's thinking about me.

9. He takes pictures of me when I'm wearing my glasses and have messy hair and declares them his very favorite pictures (and then I usually delete them, so he takes more).

10. He starts my car for me on cold mornings.

11. Once, when I took a bad driver's license picture (I had a pirate eye thing gong on), he went to renew his license and took a picture the same way. The lady behind the counter kept trying to get him to smile normally, but he refused because he wanted us to match.

12. He carefully and competently handles all of our finances and does not complain that I hardly help at all with this.

13. He encourages me when I feel very discouraged.

14. He participates in Jonas' school activities and makes sure Jonas' teachers know who he is.

15. He loves to wash the cars, even in the winter.

16. He quietly gives his time and money to people and situations that need it. He does not expect anyone to recognize or acknowledge this.

17. He tries to keep plants alive so we will have green things in our house.

18. He does laundry (folds it, too!), washes dishes and vacuums regularly.

19. He helps me lead youth activities and has slept on the floor of the church almost as many times as I have.

20. He gives me a reality check when I get dramatic.

21. He loves snow.

22. Although I take most of the family pictures, it is Jason who orders them and organizes them in albums by date. He has one for every school year.

23. He is a brilliant business person and has built a business he loves to run. His customers like him and I have never heard a bad comment about his work.

24. He buys me chocolate even when I tell him I don't need it. "No one needs chocolate," he replies as he hands me my favorite candy bar.

25. He likes Letterman better than Leno.

26. He loves our pets.

27. He knows that life isn't about how much money or how many things we have.

28. He reads my blog even though it's "too long."

29. He likes to talk to people and learn about what's going on in their lives.

30. He says "munster" instead of "monster."

31. He is a good friend. He will go to great lengths to help a friend in need.

32. He thinks about problems and situations creatively. He can usually see a solution or potential outcome that I've missed. I usually run my ideas by him first because I know that he'll give me good advice and suggestions for making them better.

33. He is patient with me and does not raise his voice, even when he's really upset with me.

34. He'll listen to me talk about Bible passages, sermon topics, stupid things that happened and rant about injustices or things that make me angry.

35. He once wrote me a 46 page love letter in a small spiral bound notebook and fastened it to my apartment doorknob with a ponytail holder. It's one of the sweetest things anyone has ever done for me.

36. He is always there when we need him. He is always sacrificing his time and his resources.

37. He's hot.

38. He loves me and respects me and makes sure that I know it every day.

Happy Birthday, Jason! You are loved, for sure.

10 Favorite Movies

Ten favorite movies (in no particular order)

1. "The Cutting Edge"

2. "Signs"

3. "It's A Wonderful Life"

4. Disney's "Aladdin"

5. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"

6. "Forrest Gump"

7. "The Breakfast Club"

8. "Slumdog Millionaire"

9. "Singin' In the Rain"

10. "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Sam!

Last week, Sam got his haircut. Our groomer takes everything off and he looks more like a lab than a golden when he's done. I don't doubt he loves the attention he gets from Allie--like a spa day! He always comes home and acts like he's in charge and lays around for the rest of the day. He also believes that since he's clean, it's okay to hop up on the bed whenever he wants. The other day he took advantage of it every time I left our bedroom for anything. I'd come back and he'd be curled up with his head resting on my pillow.

Dogs are known for their loyalty and Sam is no exception. He is such a faithful friend. At home everyone knows that if they can find me, they'll find Sam, too. Sitting by the bed while I blog, next to me on the couch when I watch tv, against the kitchen baseboards while I make dinner, following me around the yard outside...Sam's always there. He waits for me to come home and follows me to the door when I leave. As I go from room to room, he jumps up from whatever comfortable position he's in and follows me so closely that if I walk too slowly, he steps on the backs of my ankles.

He's so loyal to me I can forgive the way he always wakes me up nearly every morning--either by putting his face under the blankets and nudging me until I sit up or by standing next to the bed and putting his face on my pillow and suffocating me with his dog breath.