Category: reflections

Verse of the day

Exodus 33:12 – 23:

Moses said to God, “Look, you tell me, ‘Lead this people,’ but you don’t let me know whom you’re going to send with me. You tell me, ‘I know you well and you are special to me.’ If I am so special to you, let me in on your plans. That way, I will continue being special to you. Don’t forget, this is your people, your responsibility.”
God said, “My presence will go with you. I’ll see the journey to the end.”
Moses said, “If your presence doesn’t take the lead here, call this trip off right now. How else will it be known that you’re with me in this, with me and your people? Are you traveling with us or not? How else will we know that we’re special, I and your people, among all other people on this planet Earth?”
God said to Moses: “All right. Just as you say; this also I will do, for I know you well and you are special to me. I know you by name.”
Moses said, “Please. Let me see your Glory.”
God said, “I will make my Goodness pass right in front of you; I’ll call out the name, God, right before you. I’ll treat well whomever I want to treat well and I’ll be kind to whomever I want to be kind.”
God continued, “But you may not see my face. No one can see me and live.”
God said, “Look, here is a place right beside me. Put yourself on this rock. When my Glory passes by, I’ll put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with my hand until I’ve passed by. Then I’ll take my hand away and you’ll see my back. But you won’t see my face.”

His center is everywhere, His circumference is nowhere.
– Henery Law – in “The Gospel in Exodus”

This day in history…

Well today is like non-other. There has never been a day like it before and there will never be another day like it in the future.
In exactly one month I will be waiting at the end of an aisle for my lovely bride-to-be and we’ll leave the church hand-in-hand as husband and wife.
Wow. Who would have thunk it one year ago today? We didn’t even know each other then.
In fact, here are the things I was concerned about/writing about on March 28, 2006:

  • Students protest – Students from Irving, Dallas, Plano and Mesquite ISD protested at City Hall for a 2nd day today.
    The students were protesting new measures discussed by the House to make helping illegal immigrants a crime.
    Many Hispanic leaders are asking the students to remain in school now, after two days of walk-outs and protest on Saturdays and Sundays.
  • Complete restoration – National Community Church recently completed the complete rehabilitation of an old diner in D.C. for a new coffee house and church location.
    They’re getting great word of mouth advertising, but are also running the above ad in the April issue of the Hill Rag. The Hill Rag is the Capitol Hill newspaper.
  • Grace – Sitting at Tom’s funeral today brought one thought and one song through my mind the entire service. Grace. Tom was moved and changed by grace. I hope and pray that I continue to be. Christ came to save the world, not condemn it.
  • Andrew Card resigns

So there you have it. Not a thought or glimmer of Laurie in my mind. I hadn’t even found encounter yet – which now gets it’s own category on my blog. My how things change. And yet – my how other things stay the same.

My Swingline stapler

I just got a brand new Swingline stapler for my desk. Sadly it’s not a red one as in Office Space but a valuable piece of equipment as well.
I also got a new Rolodex which I was almost shocked to find the C-D divider missing. I thought, who steals a C-D divider out of a Rolodex? Seriously who does that. Then I realized it some how got covered up by another piece of paper. Ha. Ha ha. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.
Har har har har har har ha ha har har.
(sorry about the psycho bit there…)

If we are the body…

Have I told you I love my church lately?
It’s been a long weekend. I’m sure it will seem even longer tomorrow morning if I don’t head to bed VERY soon.
But no matter how long a weekend, no matter how tired I am tomorrow, no matter how sore or stiff I might be tomorrow, it was all worth it to see the body of Christ truly working as the body of Christ.
A month or so ago our community group had the idea of helping our pastor Brian Treadaway with some weekly duties and such. We didn’t know what that entails but we knew we wanted to help however we could.
That conversation led into how can we help Brian and his wife and his family and thus an entire weekend was planned.
Brian and Heather made a list of “honey-do” projects around their house that they either had not completed or simply needed to get started on.
Some of the items on the list included painting outside trim, cleaning brush in the backyard and laying tile in the living room.
The youth group meets at their house every week and with them and their five kids its no wonder they have a few spills from time to time.
Our group discussed it and before long the project snowballed and people from all over the church were getting involved.
So this weekend was go time.
A number of us showed up around 5:30 on Friday night and worked till near mid-night ripping out the old carpet and then busting tile out of their kitchen and breakfast nook. We decided to carry the tile work into their kitchen so the two areas wouldn’t clash.
Saturday morning we began work by 8:30 and we began to lay tile in the living room and the kitchen.
I’ve never been more impressed with a group of people – especially novice tile layers.
I’ve never actually tiled before and somehow I trained Laurie, Amber and Shari to do it after I watched Josh some on Friday night.
I must tell you — my wife to be is a tile laying fool.
Between her and the other two women, they tiled the entire living room in four or five hours. Laurie and I started in the kitchen before Josh trained a couple youth and another volunteer and they took over.
I’m telling you. It was a sight to see.
Miguel showed up and painted the entire house.
Jose and his dad Rodrigo helped bust tile up on Friday night and came back to work on the backyard fence that they had fixed/repaired/replaced much of earlier this month.
Rodrigo and his wife along with Jose’s wife and mother-in-law cooked up an awesome dinner of fajitas, rice and beans.
Jay took to scraping up the old thin set in the kitchen right away and by the end of the night he was laying, measuring and cutting tile.
Chris showed up and did a lot of scraping and helped Miguel paint.
PJ and Jonathan from the youth group were some mad workers as they scraped old linoleum, thin set and more as well as laying, measuring and cutting tile before it was all said and done.
Dennis cut down trees and brush that needed cleaning.
Beth, Marni, Shalyn and Sarah cleaned bedrooms and bathrooms.
Lon and Tristi came on Sunday to help clean up and lay grout.
Richard sang and danced to New Kids on the Block while he cleaned up brush.
Smiley scraped thin set and helped with the brush and tree trimming.
Brandi climbed trees with a chainsaw between her teeth and I think she probably hung upside down by her feet while she cut tree limbs.
Shane did an AWESOME job rebuilding drawers in the kitchen with the fronts that were on the old drawers.
And I’m sure I’m still missing some folks. We had over 30 people come and go throughout the weekend.
It was truly a great thing to see. I’m glad I was able to be a part of it in a little way.
There are several other things in the works to continue the project but I’ll wait on those for now.
For those who donated food, time, money, elbow grease and more — thanks for being a light for Christ. Thanks for giving of yourself for someone else.
Laurie said she got a lot of great photos which we’ll post soon after Brian and family have a chance to see their house. They’ve been staying with Heather’s parents over the weekend and aren’t expected back to their house until Monday afternoon.

Read more on Laurie’s blog

New blog tease

I’ve just finished setting up and importing Laurie’s new WordPress blog. I’m not even sure she knows it yet.
She picked a fun template that utilizes Widgets. Made setting up a little different. I’m still a fan of coding things out when I can but my first go around with widgets in WordPress was a good experience.
She also picked a fun template that was written all in German. I thought maybe it was just one or two words but nope – all the links like, “Post a Comment” and so forth were all written in German.
So I had to go into each page and change all the links to English. Hopefully I got them all, but if not, let me know.
So in case you can’t guess or remember what her new blog address is, visit: www.casadeblundell.com/laurie. I wouldn’t count her old blog out just yet but you never know.
Feel free to drop her a line in either location.