a day off

saturday was such a fun day! i slept in, keith took me to wahoo for breakfast, and then we went to the farmer's market and got some early christmas presents. we also bought some more mums for the garden. when we got home in the early afternoon i just rested and enjoyed the rest of the day. keith built me a fire in our firepit and we roasted hotdogs over it and ate outside. it was chilly but nice around the fire. we played with patty puppy and then watched movies that evening.

yes, my house still needs cleaning and the clothes need washing but it was so nice to just put everything on hold and just enjoy the day off. i'll clean this week : )

lessons learned in a cornmaze

this is the cornmaze i took our youth to this evening. last year at this time we had at most 4 youth and more times than not 2. we started praying and tonight we took 14 kids to this youth outing!! praise God : )

this was titled lessons learned so let me tell you the lessons we learned. when we entered the maze we followed our map and got to the end of the maze where the exit was. we didn't believe it could be that easy so we decided that we knew more than the map, see where this is going?? we went back into the maze and really got turned around. we could see the light that the maze had to kind of guide you in the right direction to get out but we just got farther and farther away from it. we eventually, 1 hour later, sort of found our way out. if you can see where the square above the name pat is, that is where we came out. as you can see, there is not an exit there. we blundered our way through and made a way out. we got out but it certainly wasn't what the makers of the maze had in mind! there was also a platform so folks could stand high above the maze and see the people trying to find their way out.

we got to talking as we were making our way around the maze back to the entrance and said this was what we do as christians. When we see the exit from our sinful lives we figure it can't be as easy as believing, surely we must have to work harder to get out of that life so we go about trying to figure it out for ourselves. as we do this we find ourselves getting farther and farther from the light. god sees us wandering around and he hollars at us to turn right or left or go straight but we ignore this and decide that we will not follow the path, hey, we'll make our own! we stumble, are caught in brambles, sometimes even fall. we may eventually get out but it certainly wasn't the path that god intended for us. it would have so much simpler if we had just gone out by the path that was marked.

good fun, good lesson!

funeral

have you ever wondered what would be said at your funeral? will people say how good you look? (i've always thought that was a terrible thing to say like you look better dead than alive?!) will people say what a wonderful person you were?

as you can tell i went to a funeral today and as always it makes me think of my mortality and what a really short time we have on this earth. i always feel funny about singing or playing for a funeral when i don't even know the person, as happened today. it is interesting to hear what people have to say at funerals. many times it makes me wish i had known this person. sometimes when i overhear what people say when they don't think anyone is listening it makes me glad i didn't know that person!

i would like to be remembered as someone who made a difference in somebody's life. i want people to say they saw christ in me. i would like to be remembered as someone who lived every minute to the fullest and had no regrets. keith said that this lady never said, "i wish i had done thus and so." i don't want to waste my life waiting to live. i think that is something profound that i have learned in the last year or so. so many times we are waiting to "do something" that we forget to live each day, i mean really live it!

i'm going to try very hard to remember that this week!