Along the same lines...

Now this is a different post so I wouldn't lose you with one being too long (sneaky blog tricks and i've still a newby) but it's kinda out of the same thought.

The other day I was doing some listening prayer with some friends. It was my turn to "header" as I call it and to me that means acting the person who asks the questions of Jesus and tunes into what and where we are going. Anyway, as we are doing this i just started feeling so inadequate because there was someone else there who does really well at this and has more practice than me and well, i just didn't want to get it wrong and mess up.

Back to the control thing. It hit me during that struggle that maybe God was big enough to use 2 totally different people and their totally different approaches and questions to still bring about the same end. That being what He has for this person to experience and hear. It kinda awed me thinking that God is that big. To not need the gifts and exactness or perfection, but rather just a willing heart.

This brings me to another thought Jon had brought up about our 1st world church culture in regards to church growth. I speak from experience feeling like someone else would do a better job at being a house group leader, or organizer of meals for the sick, or fill in the blank. I feel like I use so many exscuses as to why it can't be me and how I just need another seminar or book to prepare me more for that certain task before I do anything first.

Jon had mentioned that church growth in a third world country he'd heard of went something like this. The church was growing like a weed and new churches were being planted in the hills and the leaders and church planters were folks who themselves had only been christians for 3 or4 months. No bible school, no Willow Creek seminars to teach them how (not a dig on Willow creek) no even real experienced mentors to show them exactly "HOW"

What they had was a willing heart and obviously a relationship with God that was overflowing. So if God can use newby's so that "all things work together for good" no matter what the starting point or person or lack of experience, how can that change my attitude about it all resting on my performance. And how in turn can that affect my actions living life in confidence that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". I think I've too long seen this verse as a pep talk to help me get through something as opposed to a truth that brings freedom. A promise that no matter how inadequate, how unprepared, how truly ungifted I am in that area it is GOD who is at work through me to accomplish his purposes which most often do not equate my perfection anyway. Just my thoughts...

My night

So I just got back from work. Second to last shift of my life? Life as I know it anyway. Had a patient die this evening minutes after we finished turning him and trying to help him out. It was a very scary feeling to feel like you might totally be responsible for his dying at that specific moment. Maybe if we had just left him alone he would have lived a few more hours. However this man had terminal cancer so his death was not unexpected, moreso just how fast things happened. To sitting and eating breakfast himself friday morning to gone saturday evening.

As I debriefed with the staff who shared their own stories of similar fears experienced, I realized I needed to answer a question before I could go on. That being do I really believe God is in control of when a person's life ends? That he has the ultimate say and knew from the beginning of this person's life what the date and time would be?

Then if I truly believe the above, how am I responsible for my part (as little as it may be) in his death? I kinda think he could've lived another 5 minutes or more had we not disturbed the situation of his body. (the more senior staff assured me that often a patient will "go" soon after being turned or cleaned up and attribute it to changing the stasis of the body, just that one more thing to push it over its' limit)

I kinda see the scenario two ways. The first being the way I fear that it is... that I screwed up and God looked down and said "oh crap rhonda what'd you do know" and had to rush his secretary along to type this guys name in the book of life and death because God wasn't planning on him going till tomorrow evening but thanks to me he had to move it up and white out tomorrows entry. Like God is covering my butt and I have the control over how things turn out.

The other scenario I just started gnawing on during my drive home. It being that God is God and I cannot comprehend his ways. Kinda like a hugely amplified version of not comprehending my husband and his ways. He is just different and isn't wired like I am. (both Jon and God)
That God does know the day and time of everyone's death as soon as they're born. That he is totally in control and i am not. And maybe what I think "control" looks like isn't even an option for God because he is so far removed from how we operate the two can't even be compared. His "control" is something I can't comprehend, just accept. Kinda like faith and it's workings.

I know their is this whole other debate with points regarding responsibility when you are truly the cause of the death, like the guy driving the car that ran someone over. But it's too late to even confuse myself with it.

Back from life...

Hello faithful and frustrated readers.

So all I can say is apparently when my life gets stressful and I end up emotionally drained I avoid the computer and blog thoughts.

For whatever reason it seems to take energy to put thoughts together in a fairly understandable way so when I don't feel like I can, I don't.

So the fast forward of my last few weeks, deep conversations, hard words, difficult feelings, busy lives, 4 trips to winnipeg (usually we go once a month) did I mention i'm still pregnant and crazy at times? an ultrasound, 2 doctors appointments....

Not more than some of your lives I'm sure, just more than I like to be doing...

So here's the scoop. Ultrasound-my two babies are fuzzy little critters with beating hearts and apparently no obvious developmental problems.

My OB guy in Winnipeg signed my sick leave for December 1'st (his suggestion not mine) I truly just about kissed him because I just wasn't sure how much longer I could push myself. So here's a crazy fact, I saw the midwife today. i am 23 weeks measuring 30 weeks and I have put on 17 pounds in the last 5 weeks. Is that not out of control. A total of 30 pounds in total. CRAZY!!!

Thanks guys for the kind words from the Vineyard Sat night. It was really good to see you all (Krista i'm sad i missed out on you) I was telling Jon it was like a big family reunion. It was a blast to see so many people of my winnipeg life all in one place. I came home with this overwhelming thankfulness for all the amazing things that the vineyard community had taught me and introduced me to during that part of my life. Specifically after worship I was so reminded of the deep wells of worship I had been introduced to how many years ago and just thankful for what that had instilled in me, and wrecked me for.

Anyhoo, until another night.

Bono's wife

See all my thoughts are connected today, I just thought it would be an overwhelming blog to write them as one entry. New bloggee is learning.

So I have been thinking lately how I would love to read Bono's wife's biography. I don't even know her name but I have so many questions for her.

She has 5 kids I think. She was dating Bono right from the beginning before they became huge. I want to know how she does it and if she minds that no one knows her name? Marriage has taught me that it really does take a partnership to parent kids and fulfill each other's dreams. But how are her dreams and parenting with Bono balanced with someone who travels so much and is in high demand? I wonder if she ever wished she was married to a plumber. I wonder if she resents his huge talents? I wonder if she has fulfilled her dreams or if her life has been all about fulfilling his? I wonder what she loves about this man and what it is really like to live with him. But mostly I just want to know who she is and what makes her up.

Why don't more famous wives write biographies? I mean besides Hilary Clinton.

The pastors wife

My husband is a worship leader. A "worship guy" a "muscician" but I don't feel the freedom to call him a "worship pastor" or a "pastor". I tell people we moved here because my husband took a job with a local church doing the music. It just so happens my co workers think of him as a pastor and I don't know what to say to it.

I mean yes he is, he teaches, he leads, he partners with the other co pastors to prepare sundays messages and he's totally involved with pastoral type stuff. But I don't look at him and think of him as a pastor. He's my husband. Maybe that's part of it though that I didn't realize he was a worship leader until after we were married and he wasn't working at a church either before we met. He was a computer guy whose hobby was being a musician.

As I was spending quiet time today pondering things going on in my heart the thought came to me that as a teenager I had told myself I would never want to be a pastor's wife. What a crummy role that was I thought. Up till that point I had never met a pastor's wife who looked like they had fun, who I found interesting, who the congregation didn't look at like there was a magic divide between us and her. I think of "pastor's wives" only wearing skirts, always having their hair done nicely, sitting in the front row while their husbands preached, kinda church ladyish looking. They have come across to me as reserved, not letting too many people inside, no strong opinions about things that did not concern the decor of the church or the upkeep of the bathrooms. Just someone who I never wanted to be like.

So, when they call him a pastor and I am his wife guess what I happen to be?

Thankfully I have since met a slew of women who happen to be married to pastors who are pastors themselves or have totally smashed my earlier view of what I had seen modelled. It doesn't make it any easier to understand my new role. And maybe I don't have any role to fill or play besides Rhonda the person who married Jon, who loves Jesus and doesn't wear skirts every sunday. But I was amazed at how I subconsciously have been fighting a box that God isn't even asking me to fit into.

Meal Prayers

I don't know what else to call this kind of prayer. The one's that you say before you eat.

"Thanks for the great food and the hands that prepared it."
" Come be our guest at our table. "
"Bless this food to our bodies"

My thoughts are many on this topic inspired initially by my little girl refusing to pray with us at supper time.

When she first caught on she could pray with us at like a year and a half she would hold our fingers (because we hold hands as we pray) and smile big.

Then she began mimmicking us and folding her hands like grandpa and bowing her head.

Now she just plain refuses. And I'm afraid my child is a heathen. Initially we were making it an obedience issue, come on, darn it partake in the family prayer or no dessert. Now I'm aware I'm pushing an issue she's not quite developmentally ready for. She also refuses to say nighttime prayers with us. Not sure exactly what she doesn't like because she can't express her discomfort with words quite yet.

But it brings to mind prayer from a child's point of view. What is the point? Not in prayer in general but more the ritual ones. I wonder if it just doesn't make sense to her and she's uncomfortable doing something she doesn't understand. Because up to this point we've been much more focused on her learning the words for her environment and emotions than for her understanding God and Jesus. She has difficulty communicating with me, someone she interacts with, how then can I expect her to understand what it is to communicate with God. Not that I won't try to explain it in the future.

So then it brought up my own ritual prayers and why do I pray them and do I really believe what I'm saying? Does God find it important that I thank him for every meal? I truly am thankful but is it more sincere when I truly think of all the things he has given me and am thankful for and talk to him about these? Compared to a memorized prayer passed on to me by someone else that I recite in 30 seconds.

It's funny but I feel like I'm asking questions I should have asked when I was 8 years old.

At work in a southern manitoba predominantly christian community I have noticed how many of my co workers bow their heads before a meal. And I normally only pray at supper so I've felt some internal pressure to go with the flow and do like my colleagues. I mean they know I'm a christian, that my husband is a worship guy (they call him a pastor see next blog regarding this)
so why do I not partake in this overtly christian expression along with them. Simply because it feels like I'm doing it so they don't think poorly of me versus doing it because I truly am thankful. So I specifically don't do. Maybe I'm this subversive christian who makes her stands in such miniscule ways no one but me notices, but to me I just can't do it to fit in. If I don't sincerely mean it I can't say it. I just wonder what God thinks. Guess i could ask him....