What I love about Sundays...

Well, I have been floating on my little cloud of happiness since Friday! I had so many things happen this weekend that I'm going to try really hard to be organized.

Saturday

On Saturday I look my pups to the dog park so they could play with their friends Howie and Max, then ran a few miles and did a TRX workout.

Funny story: I decided that since it wasn't that hot out yesterday, it would be cool to go to the 1-mile track on post (for non-military people, when I refer to "on post" I mean on the military base). I ran around the track a few times then took my TRX bands out of the car because I thought it would be a cool idea to hang them from the pull-up bars and do my workout outside also. The first set was awesome until I got down to do a plank on the ground... apparently this dirt wasn't just any dirt. It was like super magnetic stick to every part of your body dirt. After the first set, I stood up and had this grayish dirt all over my body. All I could think about was Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown. I was so embarrassed I had to stop working out and go home so people would stop staring at me.

This is basically what I looked like.
photo credit

That was basically the highlight of my day Saturday, after that I just went home and made dinner and watched a movie.

Sunday!!

I think it's pretty ironic that growing up, I went to church and would stare at the clock just wondering when church would be over. After having been out of town every Sunday for the past month, I had been looking forward to Sunday all week. I was so excited to go to CrossPointe and see my church family that I thought church started at 10 instead of 10:30 so I got to church at 9:40. Then I had to call a friend to ask her what time church started because the parking lot was empty and I felt like I was in the twilight zone.

I know I've said before how amazing my church family is, but I constantly just feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many people that love with a Christ-like love. It's amazing how many people say "I'll pray for you" and never mean it. Throughout the past 6 months, I have gotten e-mails and texts from so many members of my group just to let me know that I was prayed for that day. It's extremely humbling and overwhelming.

Among the people from my community group that I saw was a man named Emory who had just graduated Ranger School about 3 weeks ago. He told me a story about his first chapel service in Ranger School. The chaplain asked if anyone had any testimonials and a guy stood up and started talking about having been in Ranger School since February and how his faith in God was sustaining him and he started reading Bible passages off of note cards. It was dark so Emory couldn't tell who was speaking, but went to see who it was after the service was over. That person was Brendan. When Emory told me this, I had to try really hard not to cry. The one thing that has concerned me the most about Brendan is his spiritual health. Being unable to talk to him and not knowing for sure whether or not he is putting his trust in Jesus has been weighing on my heart and the number one thing I pray about every day. The fact that not only is Brendan relying on God, but leading and encouraging others to do the same is more than I can ever ask for.

The sermon on Sunday was on Psalm 67 and about rejoicing in God's blessings. This sermon really made me stop and think about how much I still catch myself relying on my own works. I constantly set up back up plans just in case God doesn't follow through with how I want my life to be. That isn't how I should be living my life because my life isn't about me, it's about glorifying God through my spiritual gifts, but more often my struggles. Everything exists for the glory of God. Maybe Brendan recycled Ranger School so many times so he could share the gospel with someone who needs it. We don't know and we won't know until the end, but we can have peace with what happens in our lives knowing that it's for God's purpose.

Post-Church Sunday Funday

After Church, a bunch of people from my community group and I drove up to Pine Mountain to spend some time with the local youth up there. Some of them don't have the greatest home situation and they just need somewhere to go to stay out of trouble. Every Sunday a local family opens up the gymnasium so that they have somewhere to go and they get to eat some dinner.  We spent our time with them playing basketball (the guys), doing arts and crafts (the girls), and dancing! They even had a medivac helicopter come so the kids could get a tour of the inside.

So many fun activities!!

Since yesterday, I've had one girl in particular that I met on my heart. She's going into the 7th grade and I spent most of my time showing her how to make different knots so she could make bracelets. Her favorite subject is Math and she plans on trying out for the basketball team in the fall (which is good because she's really tall). Just answering those questions seemed like a struggle for her and I feel like she probably has a lot going on in her life. I just really would like to make a commitment to pray for her on a daily basis and try to make it up to Pine Mountain as often as possible while I'm in Georgia.

Chance, who started this program gave a short lesson on Joseph, which was ironic because my devotional for that morning was also on Joseph and God-given dreams. Since God gave me this story two times in one day, I figured it was probably important so I took the time to really sit and reflect on this devotion and try to decipher if God has deposited a dream into my heart, and if so, what it is... I'm not there yet. I have ideas and thoughts floating around, but nothing solid. One thing that stuck out to me was this quote from the devotional:

If your God-given dream begins to look like a nightmare, do not abort the vision. Realize the enemy is against you. Opposition rises because you are getting closer to birthing what God desires to release through you. Take courage and keep pressing onwards as you rely on God each step of the way. (Powertochange.org)

In my life, this quote relates mostly to my life before coming to Christ. It's sometimes difficult for me to express my emotions to some of my oldest friends because they know the "Old Kelly". Often, I find myself searching for courage to stand up for my love for Jesus. I've had several discussions with my Women's Bible study where we talk about how it's one thing to believe in Jesus and truly believe the Word of God, but it's another thing to have the courage to live your life the way God wants you to and to speak the Truth at all times regardless of what the outside world might say. I struggle with this particularly and end up losing my own battle a lot.

I think part of the reason I started this blog is because it's easier to speak the Truth from behind a computer screen. After typing that it seems pretty wimpy. Maybe my God-given dream is to speak the Truth to the people I love the most and need to hear it the most.

Something one of our Pastors says often in our closing prayers at Church on Sundays is that Church is the easy part. As Christians it's the resting place, the easiest part of the week where we come and praise God with other people like us. Being a Christian isn't about coming to Church every Sunday, its about what you do when you walk out that door back into the real world. That's what truly glorifies God.

I love the message of this song