This afternoon has been a MUCh needed time of rest!

God miraculously opened doors at the last minute, softened some store manager's hearts, and we were able to get more kettles out than we had thought we would during these first few critical days. That was a relief!

On the first night of kettle counting (Friday), I had to juggle being at the Corps with our counting crew, and getting Johnathan to and from his High School's football game (his team made it to the quarterfinals, and the band was on duty). It was a crazy night!

Saturday was completely nuts. Ron and Johnathan went to Seattle for two days to be a part of a music festival (Ron was invited to play percussion and Johnathan was invited to play 2nd cornet) which left me here to conduct a funeral on my own. I won't go into details, but the funeral was a really big stretch of my faith, patience and endurance. At one point I was so close to tears I nearly lost my cool! The turnout was far more than we had the capacity to deal with (260 people), but we survived and, most importantly, the family was pleased with how things turned out.

Kettle counting went well Saturday night (I LOVE our group of volunteers from the congregation), but things got hairy at the end when the financial report did NOT match the amount of money we had ready to bank. It took nearly an hour to figure out where the mistakes in our record keeping were. I was exhausted when I finally got home with David at 10:30 pm.

Today I conducted our Church services without Ron (he and Johnathan are due home sometime around midnight tonight), and it went okay. Attendance was actually fairly good, and I preached a decent sermon. As always, I went too long but at least I felt really good about the material I had studied and was presenting. It was a bit of an insult to have a couple who was visiting for the first time stand, get up, and leave just 10 minutes into the sermon. I have no idea if they just didn't like our congregation PERIOD....or if they were offended there was a woman in the pulpit, or what! I have visited other congregations before where I really wasn't enjoying the service, but I would never, EVER get up and walk out unless something was being taught that was heresy. Seriously....HOW RUDE! Sigh. Oh well. I'll be surprised if we ever see them again.....

But, on a side note, someone from the congregation who is VERY knowledgable in Scripture and has preached in our absence before, called me at home later in the day to tell me the sermon was really good. So, at least I know I wasn't totally off base in my teaching.

David had been invited to go see "New Moon" with one of the families in our congregation, so after Church they all went out to lunch and to the theater. I closed down the Church building, headed home, watched a rented movie of my own (that wasn't all that good, unfortunately), read a little of this novel my sister lent me (it's REALLY well written and very interesting!), took an amaaaaaaaazing 2 hour nap, welcomed David home from the movies, and now I'm here on the computer while watching David work on a homework assignment.

This week is going to be crazy. I am desperately behind on some things (getting in touch with the activity directors of our local nursing homes to line up distribution of Christmas gifts to residents in just 3 weeks, and getting my volunteers lined up for the Giving Tree program at the Mall).....but I'll choose to be stressed about all of that tomorrow. For tonight, I am relaxing and getting recharged after a pretty exhausting few days.

I haven't been exercising much this past week. Not enough sleep and way too much stress.

But spiritually, I've been getting a workout.

The past couple of days, Oswald Chambers and I have been getting our "devotional groove" going. Okay...so he's been dead for more than 90 years....but his thoughts have been challenging me greatly.

It's fascinating to me that things written nearly 100 years ago but a mere man, are exactly what I need to hear TODAY.

Yesterday was the reminder to not let the obsession with someone else's spiritual progress get in the way of developing your own. Although as a minister I kinda HAVE to be aware of the spiritual progress (or lack of) in the individuals of my congregation....it can't ever be at the expense of my own.

Today was the challenge to display God's glory in my every day, human life.

Yep. Stuff I need to know.

My work laptop is dead. This is the 2nd total hard drive crash in the one short year I've had it. What a piece of junk! It's been packed up and sent to Seattle where our IT guys will either fix it, or replace it. In the meantime, I've got no computer at work, and it's definitely going to be an issue with all of the Christmas related business I need to attend to!

Today we picked up the loaner vehicles our local Ford dealer is so generously providing Ron and I for the Christmas season, so our mini vans can be used full-time for kettles. I won't lie....I am SO spoiled with this year's car. I got a Ford Explorer, and it's beautiful! For the next 8 weeks I will ride in luxury, and I don't intend to take it for granted!

This weekend Ron and Johnathan will be away, so I not only have to preach on Sunday but I also have to conduct the funeral for a VERY well loved Corps member on Saturday. I'm trying to avoid panicking, and so far it's working moderately well. I'm actually more nervous about the sermon on Sunday than I am the funeral....

I am glad that I ended up doing the grocery shopping this afternoon rather than my usual Friday morning. I ran into someone I hadn't seen in a while, and it was a real treat to be able to stand in the aisle and talk for more than 1/2 hour. I like being able to touch base and find out how people are.

Okay. Lots more I could say, but I promised to reign myself in on my posts.