Closest Moments

I am a member of the 4th day movement aka cursillo community. Part of what we do is have weekly meetings with other 4th day members and we discuss our faith and actions in three areas Piety, Study and Action. Piety - what have you done to be closer to God, and what was your closest moment. Study - what spiritual aids have you used this week and Action - what apostolic opportunities have you had, what did you and what is your plan for the following week? We are an accountability group for each other and our continual walk in faith.

I bring this up because I wanted to put a little context around what a "closest moment" means. Today, my lovely bride had taken the kids to a play date at one of those jumpy houses, basically a large room filled with many very large inflatable items on which the kids can jump and play. While there the 5 year old was holding the 18 month old while they slid down one of the large slides and Jen was videotaping the memory, (probably to blog about later) while doing this she managed to step off the landing pad in such a way that her ankle twisted and it sounded like she "stepped on a bag of potato chips"

She calls me and I was, thank God, in the area, I came and picked them all up, took her to the emergency room, my old insurance lapsed, of course, as of my ending my employment on Friday. We had the forethought to get new insurance before the old lapsed you can read about that here. At any rate, thank God again.

Okay so the closest moment... I don't know about the 5 year olds you are in contact with, but mine was a shining example of the Love of Christ today. the entire time on the way to the hospital, at the hospital, on the way home, he was constantly reassuring his mother it was going to be okay, does it hurt, can I get you anything, I love you, etc. at one point she sat in a different place and put her foot on the chair he was sitting on, rather than saying something like "eww gross" he said "I like this better I can touch your foot" as he ever so gently rubbed her foot, being careful not to touch the swollen ankle.

Thank God for such a shining example of unconditional love, I was both proud and yet in awe of the Christlike example my 5 year old showed me today. it truly was a living example of what Jesus meant in Matthew 18:1-4 "At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

Praise God!

BTW Jen is okay it is a very bad sprain, and she is adjusting to life with crutches and ice packs for a while.

Reflecting

Sometime reflecting or spending time in reflection can be a good thing, other times it is torture... for example talking to my 4 year old who will occasionally say... "hey dad, you remember when..." and we launch into a great discussion about something that happened, and how we felt about it.

on the other hand, there is reflecting on past work experience and attempting to capture the last 10 to 15 years of your life in short snippets of buzzwords that will cause an HR or hiring manager to say, "now THIS is a guy I want to interview" I would rather have the 1st type any day over the later. capturing ones life in snippets is no fun.

As I have been thinking about this, I couldn't help but wonder what my Christian resume would look like. I think it would have a completely different format and the buzz words would be very different, for example I would hope there would be more words like Love, Loved, Loving, Caring, Altruistic, Selfless, servant leader, good listener, you know now that I write that maybe they are not that different, I would like my professional resume to contain such sentiment as Caring, Selfless, servant leader, good listener, and hey why not loving! Maybe they use different buzz words but perhaps they should convey the same message.

Randall is a Caring, selfless, servant leader who is a good listener and has a loving disposition.

Now all I have to do is make that show forth using words like managed, resulting in, saving, designed, developed and deployed... well like Jesus said in Mathew and Mark "For man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible" so I will... With God's help.

Monday two-fer

So, yesterday was EXTREMELY busy. I did manage to do my morning prayer while cooking chickens etc., I did not get a chance to post a post. This morning, with the time change the kids internal clocks are wacky so I didn't get to do morning prayer but I am posting, so between the two days I have a complete success :-)

Yesterday's morning prayer included a reading from 1st Corinthians 13, well I guess it was the whole chapter, now that I think about it. Anyway, I do enjoy this reading, not only because it talks about love and what love is, in the agape sense. But also because it reminds me that everything I do I should do with the love of Christ, or else it is meaningless. I could be the greatest father-son-brother-nephew-friend-boss-co-worker-employee the world had ever seen, but if I don't have love I have nothing. I could be the best ministry leader-teacher-Evangelist-mentor the world had ever seen but if I don't have love I have nothing. I could be the richest or poorest or or or but if I don't have love I don't have anything.

Said another way, if I don't have Christ I don't have anything. Praise God for his willingness to love me a sinner.

That is what I would have posted, had I posted yesterday, so now for the two-fer part...

A new section I am tentatively calling Monday's prayer list. things I am praying for this week, I encourage you to add your items and if led pray for the whole list... keep checking back and see what people are praying for.

The start of my list in NO particular order:

My friend Deborah who's cancer has returned and her husband Bernie
Precious Zoey who is battling leukemia for healing and her parents for strength

For our troops and their families, both in war zones and safe at home. Help them know they have my support and they are LOVED
For the elections tomorrow, regardless of the winner, may the Lord watch over them in their leadership, us under their leadership
For all the leaders of the world (see above)
For my wonderful kids. keep them safe and secure, filled with wonder and awe, teach them
For my wife, help her to find the rest she needs, give her the strength to be a stay-at-home mom.
For me as a father and husband, that I might be what my wife and kids need me to be and that I might teach them through actions the love of Christ.
For me as an employee, that I might do my job with the love of Christ and thankfulness for the employer who helps me put food on the table and a roof over my head
For my enemies, that I might see the love of Christ in them and they in me and one day we might share eternity together.
For George as he deals with the recent loss of his wife.
For Bruce, my pastor as he leads our church
For our Church
For my ministries that they might sow the seeds of Christ.
For the universal Church that the love of Christ might be seen around the world so that we might live into Jesus' proclamation... "repent for the kingdom of God has come near!"

What can we pray with you about?

31 for 21 challenge

October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month. There is a challenge called 31 for 21. The rules are simple, there are no rules. The goal is to post every day for the month of October preferably about down syndrome, aka Trisonimy 21 or T-21. thus the name 31 (days in October) for 21 (T-21 or down syndrome).

The real goal is to raise awareness and remove stigma and/or dogma about down sysndrome.

I am the father of three wonderful kids. 2 boys 8 and 4.5 and a 15 month old girl. My daughter, Sydney, has down syndrome. My wife and I, mostly my wife, post about how the day in and day out details of raising a special needs child in a life of faith and how we rely on God. (http://downrightfaith.com/weblog).

We started that site, when Sydney was born becasue she was in the NICU for the first 2 weeks of her life, and we needed a way to communicate to the masses that everything was okay. At first we just posted pictures and an occasional update. As time moved on we turned it into a real blog. The idea was we, both my wife and I, would post. My wife was a bit more diligent about it than I was, and now almost a year and half later I feel like I am invading her space when I post, though I don't think she sees it that way. So I thougth I would strike out on my own...

1 chose the verse 1st Samuel 16:7 as the title for the blog because I think it speaks to how God sees all of us, and it reminds us how we should see people. The world sees the outward appearance, but God sees the heart. Later Jesus tells us (Matthew 22:37-39) that the greatest commandments is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and all our mind, and the second is like it, to love our neighbors like ourselves. I believe this is what we are called to do with all people, regardless of outward apperance, we are called to love them will all our heart.

so that is my goal for October and beyond amist my ramblings and posts to bring to light the beauty that can be seen when we look at each other with the love of God.