I'm thankful for today, it was pretty epic.
Stage 1. Early Morning Football.
This morning my family prepared for my church s annual football game. Since I have so many male siblings my family is always expected to make a good showing. Today we had six players, Nathan (8) Ezra (11) Jordan (13) Me (16) Daniel (22) Daddy (?). We headed out about nine complete with headbands and football jerseys. I wore my traditional Ricky Williams jersey, for those of you who dont know, Ricky Williams was kicked out of football for multiple years because of drug abuse but tradition is tradition so I had to wear the jersey. The games were really good and very evenly matched. Their were no girls, which made it much easier and it was not really windy only horribly cold. I started out playing poorly but I redeemed myself later on when I caught an interception which I returned for a touchdown and made a full layout to catch a ball that was actually meant for my older brother. My team won by a slight very small margin of two points.
Stage 2. Dinner
We had a very small crowd this year. One of my mom's brothers came up from New York with his family. We had our resident Super Genius Man Man come over, more commonly known as Dr John Vaz he is the culmination of all things respectful and gentlemanly. In total we had a scanty 13 people, 13 people to consume enough food for an army. Let me tell you, finishing all that food was rough like really really difficult. We somehow managed though to consume the majority of our feast and left the remains for tomorrow.
Stage 3. Conversation/Dessert 1
After dinner we rotated doing dishes and talking with our guests. We had an excellant Pecan Pie which has been an old tradition from the times of my grandmother. *whispers* I think my mom makes my great grandmothers recipe for Pecan pie better then she did. We talked about The City of God and the turbelant times during which The Church was proclaimed the state religion of the Roman Empire and all the struggles that went along with that imperial decision.
Stage 4. Dessert 2
Bidding farewell to our guests we loaded into our cars (its really sad, I can't say van anymore *sniff sniff* because we sold our epicly large 15 passenger van and we are now a two car family) but we loaded into our cars and headed over to my grandmothers house where all of my dads family has gathered for another dessert session. We passed the evening playing cards, I had the worst luck, and eating a combination of Cherry, Pumpkin, Apple, Boston Cream and Blueberry pies.
Stage 5. Home again and I'll probably soon be rolling my tired, sore stuffed body up to my bed.
It was one of the best Thanksgiving I can remember but today wasn't even the point of this post, I mean I"m thankful for today and all but I dont want to end this whole thankfulness exercise on being thankful for something I couldn't have avoided even if I wanted to. So I'll share with you something interesting I thought about today. As I was riding in the car I had an interesting thought and it made me really thankful, thankful that everyone is not like me. I mean I like me alot (being totally serious) and I love watching as God molds me into whatever clay vessel he's gonna make me. Sometimes it looks like a pretty vase and other times it looks like a dumpy inkwell but either way I know I'm being crafted by the Master Craftsmen. So my thought today was "what if everyone was like me?" Pontificating on this question made me sooooo happy that everyone is not like me. lol I mean honestly how boring would life be? No one would laugh at my jokes no one would be there to pick up when they fall and no one would be their to pick me up when I fall. The only thing I could really do well with myself would be play Age of Empires and that gets boring after awhile. So throughout the day I've been coming to appreciate the advantages that their are and the enormous wisdom that God had in enabling human genes to come up with an infinite combination of character traits and physical features. We truly serve a creative God with an awesome sense of humor. I mean just look at me? Doesn't it just make you chuckle and say "God you did that?....really... you made that? are you sure that was smart?"
So now that this fourteen days of thankfulness is over I hope we wont forget throughout the upcoming year how grateful we ought to be all the time. I think I'm gonna periodically scatter a couple more thankfulness posts throughout each month just to keep my mind focused correctly and I'd encourage you all who were disciplined enough to do this for fourteen days straight to make the effort to do it once or twice a month. How hard can it be if we do it together?
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Thankfulness Post, Day 13
I'm very much vexed because I was gonna post about something really cool and then forgot what it was. So now I'm stuck and with only 36 minutes left until tomorrow I need to come up with something quick. Today, at my churches Thanksgiving Eve service we played a really neat hymn that I hadn't heard in awhile called, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. I was really thankful for that song because earlier we had sung three or four other songs which were not bad by any means but they just didn't have much substance they were kinda the fluffy modern worship songs. Recently I've come to appreciate hymns enormously, they are not merely fluffy songs that have all the right words but have no meaning in them. I think what makes hymns so special and powerful is that they were written through the passion of men who had experianced the power of the living God and had felt His saving grace. A Mighty Fortress is our God was written by Martin Luther during the the turbalant times of the Reformation. It Is Well With My Soul was written by Horatio Spafford after he had lost all his property in The Great Chicago Fire, his only son to an unknown incurable disease and all four of his daughters to a shipping accident. Their is power in words that come from the heart of a grieving father or a wearied pastor or a troubled child. We must appreciate the power in these relics of history that tell stories of darkness and frustration being conquered by God's power.
Here is a list of some of my favorite hynms, comment with ones I forgot to include or with ones that are particularly special to you: Be Thou My Vision, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Come Ye Sinners, All Hail The Power of Jesus' Name, Doxology, It is well, In Christ Alone, Amazing Grace, A Might Fortress Is Our God and A Call to Prayer
Here is a list of some of my favorite hynms, comment with ones I forgot to include or with ones that are particularly special to you: Be Thou My Vision, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Come Ye Sinners, All Hail The Power of Jesus' Name, Doxology, It is well, In Christ Alone, Amazing Grace, A Might Fortress Is Our God and A Call to Prayer
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Thankfulness Day 10, 11 and 12
Considering the enormous amount of things I have to be thankful for and taking into consideration the enormity of my blessings I can not fathom why I still have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. I have everything to look forward to and yet I get upset at the slightest provocation and can in an instant forget all my blessings and go back to the old ways of self love and sin. In an effort to keep myself from hearkening back to the old ways of self indulgence I'll try to make this post longer and move involved then previous posts.
So Sunday was a very interesting day, I've ceased to say whether days are good or bad because I can not trust my feelings to tell me whether it was good or bad because my feelings are often misguided and I can not trust the circumstances to tell me if it was good or bad because circumstances do not prove the morality of an action. Needless to say Sunday was an interesting day and it prompted me to include in this post my gratitude for the Sabbath. Historically the sabbath whether it was a Saturday or Sunday was a day of celebration and rejoicing. In ancient Jewish culture the sabbath was a time to rejoice in all that God had done for His people. In the early church you were allowed only to pray/worship standing up with your arms upraised on the Sabbath because it was day for rejoicing and not for repentance. You were supposed to be right with God before the Sabbath because on the Sabbath was the day set aside to praising God not sadness or regret. Today our sabbath has become something of a drudgery, we're glad for the day off from school and the time we can spend with friends at church but its almost like the glory of Sunday is darkened by the knowledge that we have to go to school the next day. I'm thankful for the historical view of the Sabbath and this view is one I'm trying to implant into myself. Sunday is not meant to be a drudgery or merely another day of the weekend, rather it is a time to rejoice together with the brothers and sisters of the faith, to rejoice in the remembrance of what God has done for us. Everything from Creation to the Exodus to the Resurrection and all subsequent divine acts of God that are worthy of praise. We must make Sunday a day of remembrance and empowerment not merely a day to cram all your homework into that you didn't do on Saturday. The day is holy and has the potential to be so much more then we let it.
Remembering the great acts of God brought me my second thing I'm thankful for. Some of you know this whole story, others have heard it in part and to some of you this will be entirely new. Know that it was divine grace that allowed this story to happen not luck or the good fortune of my parents.
For many years my family has been the recipient of thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of food. Stage 1. Over a decade ago my family approached the owners of a local Dunkin Donuts after noticing that every night the person who closed simply threw away all the leftover donuts and bagels. The manager agreed to allow my family to pick up all the leftover food from the weekends at no cost if we came at ten thirty every Saturday and packed it all up ourselves. For I think eight years my family got these donuts every weekend and what we didn't keep we brought to church the next day so the rest of the body could benefit from Gods blessing.
Stage 2. During that eight year period my father was in and out of work relatively frequently for two or two and half years. During those years we drove to the Farmers Market (a massive warehouse where all the veggies from around the world are dropped off and local grocery stores come and pick up their fruits and vegetables) At the farmers market their is a place where they sell bad or rotting produce for really inexpensive, really inexpensive meaning 1$ or 2$ for a massive crate of oranges or apples. The so called "rotten" produce normally had maybe one or two bad products in each box so we were able to get enough fruits and veggies at really low prices enough to feed my whole family. Sometimes we were lucky and got good stuff like melons and apples but other times they had more exotic things. Sometimes dad would come home with four crates of Radishes which required much more creativity to enjoy.
Stage 3. I saved the best for last because I didn't want to end on something boring. Now the Dunkin Donuts deal stopped about two years ago because the owner of the branch changed and a few other variables came into existence that made the free donuts not worth pursuing. The Farmers Market cheap produce section closed down and were not sure why but God who knew the needs of my large family decided to give us something else. Using the same tactics that we used for Dunkin Donuts we talked to the owners of a local Panera Bread and they agreed to let us come every Friday and Saturday night after the store closed and take all the leftover bread and pastries, this usually numbers three or four boxes. If you've been to Panera you know how expensive it is and its the finest quality bread you can get. So every week God gives us more bread then my family could possibly eat, enough that we can bring hundreds of dollars worth of bread to church every week. This deal with Panera is still going on and all you who go to my church can agree that it is awesome.
So I think that qualifies as three days of thankfulness. I hope that reading helped you all think of those special things God did for you which you can be thankful for.
So Sunday was a very interesting day, I've ceased to say whether days are good or bad because I can not trust my feelings to tell me whether it was good or bad because my feelings are often misguided and I can not trust the circumstances to tell me if it was good or bad because circumstances do not prove the morality of an action. Needless to say Sunday was an interesting day and it prompted me to include in this post my gratitude for the Sabbath. Historically the sabbath whether it was a Saturday or Sunday was a day of celebration and rejoicing. In ancient Jewish culture the sabbath was a time to rejoice in all that God had done for His people. In the early church you were allowed only to pray/worship standing up with your arms upraised on the Sabbath because it was day for rejoicing and not for repentance. You were supposed to be right with God before the Sabbath because on the Sabbath was the day set aside to praising God not sadness or regret. Today our sabbath has become something of a drudgery, we're glad for the day off from school and the time we can spend with friends at church but its almost like the glory of Sunday is darkened by the knowledge that we have to go to school the next day. I'm thankful for the historical view of the Sabbath and this view is one I'm trying to implant into myself. Sunday is not meant to be a drudgery or merely another day of the weekend, rather it is a time to rejoice together with the brothers and sisters of the faith, to rejoice in the remembrance of what God has done for us. Everything from Creation to the Exodus to the Resurrection and all subsequent divine acts of God that are worthy of praise. We must make Sunday a day of remembrance and empowerment not merely a day to cram all your homework into that you didn't do on Saturday. The day is holy and has the potential to be so much more then we let it.
Remembering the great acts of God brought me my second thing I'm thankful for. Some of you know this whole story, others have heard it in part and to some of you this will be entirely new. Know that it was divine grace that allowed this story to happen not luck or the good fortune of my parents.
For many years my family has been the recipient of thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of food. Stage 1. Over a decade ago my family approached the owners of a local Dunkin Donuts after noticing that every night the person who closed simply threw away all the leftover donuts and bagels. The manager agreed to allow my family to pick up all the leftover food from the weekends at no cost if we came at ten thirty every Saturday and packed it all up ourselves. For I think eight years my family got these donuts every weekend and what we didn't keep we brought to church the next day so the rest of the body could benefit from Gods blessing.
Stage 2. During that eight year period my father was in and out of work relatively frequently for two or two and half years. During those years we drove to the Farmers Market (a massive warehouse where all the veggies from around the world are dropped off and local grocery stores come and pick up their fruits and vegetables) At the farmers market their is a place where they sell bad or rotting produce for really inexpensive, really inexpensive meaning 1$ or 2$ for a massive crate of oranges or apples. The so called "rotten" produce normally had maybe one or two bad products in each box so we were able to get enough fruits and veggies at really low prices enough to feed my whole family. Sometimes we were lucky and got good stuff like melons and apples but other times they had more exotic things. Sometimes dad would come home with four crates of Radishes which required much more creativity to enjoy.
Stage 3. I saved the best for last because I didn't want to end on something boring. Now the Dunkin Donuts deal stopped about two years ago because the owner of the branch changed and a few other variables came into existence that made the free donuts not worth pursuing. The Farmers Market cheap produce section closed down and were not sure why but God who knew the needs of my large family decided to give us something else. Using the same tactics that we used for Dunkin Donuts we talked to the owners of a local Panera Bread and they agreed to let us come every Friday and Saturday night after the store closed and take all the leftover bread and pastries, this usually numbers three or four boxes. If you've been to Panera you know how expensive it is and its the finest quality bread you can get. So every week God gives us more bread then my family could possibly eat, enough that we can bring hundreds of dollars worth of bread to church every week. This deal with Panera is still going on and all you who go to my church can agree that it is awesome.
So I think that qualifies as three days of thankfulness. I hope that reading helped you all think of those special things God did for you which you can be thankful for.
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