Behind a Locked Door

The library door is locked. For months I peeked through the window at the treasure within. I wondered, "How can I get in there? What books are on the shelves?" I made friends with the janitor of the church that we are attending. He showed me where the key is kept. It sits on top of the electric box in a storage closet. I can get the key and take what I want from the library.

Books by Beth Moore, Max Lucado, and Adrian Rogers sit on the shelves. The covers are new. The pages uncreased. There is a sign out sheet on the desk. My name is the only one on the sheet. I have checked out and returned And the Angels Were Silent, Six Hours One Friday, Walking Through the Fire, Signs of Spring. Last Sunday I pulled out and put back books, looking for an interesting read. I came home with Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Church. The binding crackled when I opened the book. Am I the first person to read this copy? How long has it been sitting on the shelves?

Rick Warren writes about creating a church that reaches the unchurched...a church that assesses it methods and motivations...a church that throws aside all that hinders spreading the gospel effectively...a church that is both culturally relevant and uncompromising in truth. Our family has been blessed to spend the last twelve years at two churches that are all of these things. In this season, God is giving us a glimpse at a different kind of church.

This church is run by deacons who have been the deacons for the last thirty years. People have been born to the comittees they serve on. I recently got a phone call from a member of the Committee of Commitees! Sunday morning the You need to be saved gospel message is preached...every Sunday morning. The congregation is harangued with messages of how sinful they are...how they need to straighten up and fly right. Like a used car salesman, the pastor tries to propel people to come forward to repent, to be baptized, to join the church. No one comes. No one joins. No one visits. The congregation grows smaller.

Ideas are guarded, personal growth is limited, biblical knowledge is stunted in part because the library door is locked.

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4-H Exhibits-Updated

Update: Blue ribbons all around! 4 of our projects will go onto the state fair. John's headboard exceeds size limitations and so we will lug it home tomorrow. We are relieved. That thing is heavy! ************* For the past few weeks we have been busy sewing, sawing, quilling and painting 4-H projects. The kids have been in 4-H for about a month and they started with a bang. The annual 4-H fair is tomorrow. So this morning we loaded these projects and four kids wearing slippers into the car. The fifth one had sense enough to wear flip-flops. (The other four complained as we pulled out of the driveway that their feet were sweating.) John reclining against the headboard that he built with Stuart. He wrote the 10 Commandments of Table Saw Safety to accompany this project. Claire's quilling project. Lauren modeling the apron that she sewed. Lauren and the dog painting she has been working on in art class for the past few months. Faith and her quilling project. So now...

Finding Rest: Part Two (Scroll down three posts to read this story from the beginning)

Why share such a personal story ? I share it because I have talked to enough women to know that underneath the makeup and the matching outfits and the small talk that make up our exteriors, we are a broken people. To pretend otherwise creates isolation. Thoughtful honesty creates closer relationships and greater understanding. When we share the way God works in the difficult things of life it encourages first oneself and then others. For some of us, the pieces have been patched and restored and there is wholeness where there was none before. But some of us are walking wounded, barely hanging on and wondering if there is hope. We have a choice. We can either be completely shattered by bitterness, depression and anger or we can lay the fragments before the One who can take the sharp slivers and jagged pieces and create a beautiful, productive life. Here is the conclusion to John's story. When John was ten, he was sullen and moody and difficult and so was I. But I was no longer proud....

Aviary Amphitheater (Wordless? Wednesday)

We're slow starters in the morning. The children lie on the sofas and read. Charlie sits and eats a graham cracker and a bowl of yogurt at the table before breakfast. Lauren and I take turn cooking oatmeal, or muffins, or scones... We eat somewhere between ten and eleven. Today, in the midst of all this leisure, the house became exceptionally quiet and I went to figure out why because "too quiet" is never a good thing. Except that it was today. I peeked out the living room window into the backyard and found five chairs and five children lined up on the patio. I opened the door and everybody shushed me. "Hush, Mama. We're watching the birds. Come sit with us" Six or seven hummingbirds were zipping around the feeder, frantic to fill their little gas tanks before they migrate. The children were silent, heads tipped up, eyes squinting against the morning light. I went in to get the camera. I took a few pictures of the children but could not capture the hyperacti...

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