Poopoopreen
I love my middle school youth. They crack me up when I least expect it. I love their humor and their craziness and their rare take on things. Tonight we were talking about James 4:11-12 where it says that when we bad-mouth friends it is like writing graffiti all over the word of God. So, they decided that since graffitti can sometimes look pretty it needed to be an ugly color so that we wouldn’t forget that it was bad. So, Blake, one of my eight-grade guys, came up with the color "Poopoopreen". This color is a combination of puke green and poo brown. 🙂 How can you not love that creative realization?
Things are mad crazy right now with many big things looming on the horizon and fewer days to get ready for them. I’m out for almost two weeks beginning next week and I’m realizing how much I have to do before I can leave town. What was I thinking taking some vacation time in May? . . . I know …. I was thinking take it now or never! Never a slow period or down-time it seems but I like it that way for the most part. I would be incessantly bored otherwise and would most likely get into trouble.
My dad is safely home which I am very grateful for. He is sick and needs prayers for healing but he is at least here where mom and I can dote on and mother-hen him.
I came across this passage in The Message today that just really spoke to my heart and captures my passion about the importance and blessedness of community and how we should go about living in community.
Real wisdom, God’s wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor. James 3:17-18
A great challenge to me especially in the first part to live a holy life and to get along with others by being gentle, reasonable, merciful, a blessing to others and consistent. I try to live this way and to treat others with dignity and honor but I worry sometimes that I miss what true dignity and honor mean to others. The idea that sometimes you think you are treating a person with respect and dignity but it actually is pity or misunderstanding or something like that. Or that sometimes in an attempt to create community with someone where they are respected you lose yourself or your own opinions because you choose to or because you know they have run into so many bad stereotypes that you don’t want to be associated with it. I’m still learning how to love and be present with people and I’m sure will never stop learning in this regards.
I’m also learning how to balance myself and keep myself grounded when new passions enter my life. I have this tendency to be really excited and fully jump into new things of interest in my life and to drop other things. I can get consumed by new things pretty easily and lose myself in the process. So, I’m needing some time to just center myself and refocus so I don’t spin out of control.
Okay, enough deep mental stuff for one night.
Peace – Melissa