I Need A Prayer Box In My House!

Have you ever heard a sermon in church – or for that matter any public presentation anywhere – that you don't remember what was said so much as how you felt or responded as a result? Our Sunday worship service at Bethany Lutheran Church was quite the experience; nearly a full house (which is unusual for us in summer), the baptism of twin girls, and Pastor Gerald who'd returned from a one-month sabbatical this past Thursday stuffing himself into a box during the sermon!

Seriously, though I went with Darla's photo which turned out much better than mine to illustrate the point! Pastor Gerald's we tend to pray as though we're in a box, because we don't know the “formula” or think we have the right words to say to God, or that we're intruding. But it's nothing like that at all, nothing like that at all. Sorry, channeling the cadence of a line from a T.S. Eliot poem there; “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, if you want to look it up.

Saturday after Martha got off work we all rested at our house for a few hours before going out again to dinner at our local Perkins (where kids eat free Tuesdays and Saturdays but it's still not uber-cheap) and then going shopping to pick up our niece/goddaughter Josceline's birthday present – she and Sarah are both Justin Bieber “fans”, and it was a 150-piece puzzle of him – and picking up a few essentials without letting our cravings do the shopping for us.

 

See, most of the time my family and I are smart and act on it! Josceline's birthday party was Sunday afternoon and we met Grandpa and Grandma, Josceline's mom Margaret, Margaret's sister Malesa there with her three boys Mathew (who'd just returned from a Boy Scout Jamboree in D.C. and grew another inch – he'll be sixteen in September and he's six-foot-two), Brandon, and Trevor. The kids played games and climbed … climbs and enjoyed themselves and pizza, soda, and dessert for two hours.

So did we, most of it without the younglings needing our supervision in the arcade or in the play area. Then Sarah and Jeffrey came home with us and we got ready for a potluck we were hosting for some neighbor-friends (in one case, we hope will become friends with us) and overall it was a very good time. Paul and Kristin came with their two kids and brought a taco salad, while all day we'd been cooking a homemade crock pot potato soup which came out fantastic! With cookie salad for dessert.

It took a few tries, but we got Martha recorded singing … I don't want to say what, because she's entering a national singing competition with it and she comes out SO awesome, I and the kids say! Needs to get the video off by Wednesday for the competition and I know she'll do well with it. And last night Josceline was going to spend the night with us but she freaked a little, missed her mom, and saw the mouse run across our dining room floor … so I took her back to Grandma and Grandpa's.

Heck, I need a locked box in my house!

David