Musings for the Week - Running the Race, Falling in Love and Watching a Miracle

1. This weekend is our annual women's conference at my church. Our theme this year is "The Amazing Race" based on Phillipians 2. I am so blessed to have the privilege to serve some of the most wonderful women on the planet at Ninth & O Baptist Church. This year's conference speaker is our very own, Heather Payne, former member of Point of Grace. She recently retired from the group and her testimony about that is enough to fill a weekend. Our worship leader is a former church member, Julie Largent. Her and her husband, Gibson, serve at a church plant in Philadelphia now and we are so thankful we get to snatch her away for a weekend. Our church has seen some odd things over the past few weeks...things that indicate to us that we are on the brink of something amazing. I look forward to watching what amazing things come out of our running of the race this weekend.

2. I'm the Twitter-er for my company's corporate profile. I don't know that I'm a social media expert, but I do dig it. And think that the leaders of tomorrow are being raised on Facebook and Twitter today, which should reshape the way we communicate in business in ten years. One of my VPs did a blog post for our company's site and gave me a shout out...I love to see my name in lights. He's not as passionate about this Twitter phenomenon (or shall I say, as "Twitter-paited") as I am, but poses some very good observations in his article. For all the love of social networking I have, the face-to-face and voice-to-voice communication needs to be restored to a level of importance again. Or I fear our next generation will not just be Twitter-ers, but simply, twits.

3. Last week, my friend, Julie, told her boys about me. She and her husband, Rod, are in the military and will be moving back home to Kentucky next year. I graduated high school with Julie and Rod and cherish the friendship that has endured all this time. Her youngest, Clayton, when hearing of me asked, "Do you think she would like me?" The dripping sound you hear is my heart melting. During a phone call with Julie last week, Clayton got on the line. He has three heroes....Jesus, Jim Henson, and Walt Disney. We talked for 20-30 minutes about his puppets and all the cartoons he's made. By the time his Daddy got him off the phone to head to bed, I was smitten and ready to take him to FAO Schwartz and buy him a WhatNot Muppet. Yes, I'm in love...with a sweet little boy named Clayton. As we were talking, I had this surreal moment....who would of thought while Julie, Rod and I were yucking it up on newspaper staff in high school that one day I'd be talking to a product of their love. Those kinds of things just give me goose bumps.

4. I'm now less than a month away from the infamous tax date - April 15. Have I done my taxes? No. Am I motivated to do my taxes? No. Am I stressing about getting them done? Yes. I'm much to cheap, um, er, frugal to have someone do them for me and then reduce the amount of refund I'll get. But it's sunny and 65 degrees today and ten thousand more exciting things to do than my taxes. The clock is ticking....

5. I have watched a miracle happen. Our former Youth Pastor's wife, Niki, discovered two weeks ago she had a brain aneurysm behind her eye. She was rushed to a major university hospital not far from their home and scheduled for surgery last Monday. Not only was the surgery a success, her vision is perfect and she came home in less than a week from surgery! One of my friends, Paige, who lives in the town where Niki and her husband now live got to spend time with her yesterday. She shared with me how Niki sees all that God is teaching her and using in this situation for His Glory. She's already been sharing her testimony and certainly will be for a long time to come. Niki made the statement that she always said she trusted God, but those were just words. This experience really taught her how to truly trust God and mean it. Miracles really do still happen....there isn't anything much better than a story only God can craft.