Ouch!

Last night at my youngest son's basketball practice, it was time for the kids to take on the parents. Now, the last time I got to do this (with my older son's team), it turned into the Don going 1-on-5 with the 12 year olds. I had blast, so did the kids and parents.

Last night was a little different. It was dark, I was tired, and driving to the hole I landed on someone's foot and sprained my ankle pretty good. It is swollen about the size of a baseball, and hurts to walk on.

Why am I telling you this? Because it is amazing to me how difficult it has been to let other people take care of me today! I needed to just sit with my ankle raised, icing it and eating motrin. Instead, I coached one game, drove one son to a birthday party, and helped fold a couple of loads of laundry. Makes me wonder if the Lord is going to have to kill me if He ever really needs my attention.

rest and relaxation

I have 3 girls, 2 of which are nine years old. As of late I have been getting chiropractic adjustments and massages on a regular basis as my left shoulder has been a mess. My girls are aware of this process and obviously this has spurred some things in their thoughts and imaginations.

This morning my 9 year olds were out playing outside. After coming in to redo a chore they were supposed to earlier; they announced they were working on a "secret". Since they are not particularly good at keeping secrets one of them just had to tell me what they were working on.

Their secret project was that they were building a place of rest and relaxation. Their plan was that I could come there and get a massage for 10 cents a minute. They had cushions, reading material, etc. She wanted to know if that price was ok, as they were going to open it up to the people in our neighborhood.

The cushions were from our patio chairs and were old and stacked up outside ready to go to the dump. The location of this plae of rest and relaxation--the goat pen!!

I think I have the cutest girls ever! Although they would not be happy with their mother if they knew this was going out on a blog!!

It made me wonder if God sometimes hears our ideas and gets as big of a chuckle as I did this morning with my girls.

Ditto from Andy...sort of... -or- Little Blessings

It constantly amazes me all the little, seemingly insignificant ways that God blesses us on a daily basis. For instance, yesterday I decided that I needed to go to the mall (which is a wholly remarkable decision for me considering how much I hate the mall). What is more, I made the very poor decision to go to the mall on a Friday night...during rush hour...(oh yeah, and since I am house-sitting this weekend, I'm driving from Surprise).
Anyway, I finally get to Arrowhead and I make my first stop at Hat Club to buy a new hat, which I did. Actually I got two because the second was 40% off. While I was walking around, I was pondering again how much I hate the mall, and began thinking to myself how it would have been nice to have some company with me to take my mind of the fact that I was at the mall. Then, I went to the food court to find the rest room - it was a semi-emergency. En route I saw someone waving at me, who turned out to be our very own Crystal Dykes! We chatted for a while and she told me that she was here with her sister and two of her cousins. After visiting the lavatory I went over to where they were sitting for some more conversation. It wasn't a long meeting with them, and I'm pretty sure we didn't solve any of the earth's problems, but it sure brightened my experience at the mall.
Now, I'm not a hyper-mystic or anything, I'm okay with the idea of coincidences, and maybe that's all this was. Or just maybe the God who loved me enough to give His only Son so I could spend eternity with Him, loves me enough to orchestrate a few events just to brighten my evening. At any rate, it made me contemplate again His goodness, and it filled my heart with praise. Keep your eye out for those little blessings!

How Are You Doing?

This is the first blog from the Staff Assistant at Hope Chapel, and I must confess, it is much easier for me to talk than write. Regardless, here goes.
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Last week, I had an appointment with my cardiologist at 7 am, and as I was finishing the second half of my annual checkup, I arrived a little early. I received an injection and went to the waiting room to give time for the medication to go through my body. (A big challenge)

I was glancing at a magazine, when a man came into the waiting room and sat down. He picked up the morning paper, and I assumed there would be no communication, when suddenly he asked, "How are you Andy"? I looked at him, and thought, who is this? I replied, "doing good", and then he asked, "how is your wife?"

At this point,I was totally lost, for I had no idea who he was. (No, it is not my age.) I answered him and then he stated he had seen George lrecently. My question to myself was, I do not even know who you are, and now George had been added to the mix. I was confused!!

After a couple of minutes of small talk where I did not know who or what he was talking about, something clicked, and I remembered him. Her was my salesman in Montana years ago, and was to be the recipient of a down sizing. This he did not deserve, and I moved him to Phoenix so he could finish out his career and retire. After that, we had a great time of recalling our time together, and many of the other people. It was a good visit.

As I was thinking about this on the way home, I wondered how many times had God sat down next to me and asked, "how are you doing Andy." and I did not recognize Him?. How many times has He tried to have a conversation, and i was not listening?

Then I remembered, I had not seen Gordon for almost 20 years. No wonder I did not know who he was at first. On the other hand, I had been part of God's family for many years.

I do know I have a long way to go in developing a deep and intimate relationship with God, but I have come a long ways, by the grace of my Jesus. It scares me to think there may have been times I have missed recognizing God's presence, for whatever reason. This has brought my emotions to the surface as never before, as this thought grieves me.

It is my intent to stay in touch with Gordon and renew our relationship. At the same time I pray I will miss those times when God draws near. May I always remember God is with me, His presence surrounds me, His Grace sustains me, and His love overwhelms me. Who would want to miss this?

To God be the glory!!

Andy

Time to Live

As I was driving back from school on Monday I heard a song on KLOVE by Superchick that got me thinking. Now, to be quite honest, I didn't care for the musicality of the song - it was not very melodic at all, but more rhythmic; it was kind of a mix of hip-hop/rap with a little bit of a latin feel - not my cup of tea. But the lyrics were quite thoughtful and inspiring. The song was essentially a series of stories about people coming to terms with mortality (a mother losing her son in a car accident, a man with cancer sitting in a doctor's office waiting for the test results), and the chorus is basically a reminder to LIVE, and not to put off living.

We live, we love, we forgive and never give up
Cuz the days we are given are gifts from above
And today we remember to live and to love

The one verse/line that really hit me was this one:

There's a man who waits for the tests to
See if the cancer had spread yet
And now he asks why did I wait to live 'til it was time to die
If I could have the time back, how I'd live
Life is such a gift
So how does the story end?
Well, this is your story and it all depends
So don't let it become true
Get out and do what we were meant to do

I know for me it is very true that I tend to put off doing the really important things until something unpleasant smacks me in the face and reminds me. Can I get a witness?! I love how that last verse turns from the story of some other person to "this is your story." We all have a responsibility to make sure we're not squandering our life. Each day really is "a gift from above," and we ought to cherish every day, every moment...Well said Superchick!

In Luke 17: 5-6, it tells of the disciples becoming aware of their need for more faith and Jesus goes on to explain the reality of mustard seed size faith and what it can accomplish.

Two things:

1. It is encouraging to me that the disciples, those who lived day in and day out with Jesus watching Him work countless miracles daily, felt a need for more faith. Faith, as with money and time appears to be something we never feel we have enough of.

2. Jesus never said they/we needed more. He just said, and I paraphrase-even if it feels like you only have a little, just use what you have. To me this is very kind of Him. He doesn't require us to work to aquire more faith, He just says, what you have is enough!

Instead of worrying about not having enough faith at times, I think I will just trust His words in the scripture and know that applying what I have is more importatant that attaining more.

Helping kids grow up full of faith

I spent the last two weeks struggling over what to teach last Sunday in Kids Church. Saturday night at approximately 10:00 pm, I finally settled on teaching about Balaam and his donkey. I prayed that God would use the lesson to help kids remember that God can do amazing things and we don't want to be so "caught up" in the moment that we miss God's miracle. I planned a big craft, a puppet show, and other stuff. For my "opening", I planned to have the kids talk about amazing things that they have seen or heard or to tell something amazing that God has done in their lives. At first it was a struggle to get an answer out of the kids. Then, I told them about a miracle God had done in my life when I was a child. A couple of kids remembered the story because I have told it before. Here's the surprising thing: they were all interested in hearing about the miracle - even the kids who had heard it before. Once I told about that miracle, all the kids started raising their hands to tell about the miracles that God had done in their lives, in the lives of their family members, and even miracles they had heard about on TV. I was reminded again how much children LOVE to hear stories of faith, of miracles, and of God's power from people who have experienced it first hand. It is very obvious which children have people in their lives who tell them stories of faith because those were the children who were excited to share. God knew what he was doing when he told people to celebrate history with traditions and storytelling. It makes the "story" come alive. The kids love to hear and retell the stories. I never got to any other activity except reading the story of Balaam and talking about how God made the donkey talk. The kids used almost all our time sharing stories of God's miracles. Maybe that was what God was trying to get me to do all along and I was just trying too hard to *plan*.

I think I'll make sure to spend a few minutes this week telling my kids more stories about the miracles God has done in our family.

What a Day

My days are rarely boring at Hope. My job description is pretty open, so I end up doing a lot of different things. This last Friday, for example, I started with 2 hours of digging through the old credit card accounts looking for about 6 transactions that were mis-recorded (I know it sounds awful, but because I found them, it was deeply satisfying). Then I spent some time working on my notes for Sunday evening; made some small design changes to the web site, fixed some programming on another web site that I maintain for a friend; cleaned up a bit in the sanctuary; moved chairs from one room to another; ordered a correction for the Harvest Festival banner; and answered a dozen or so emails and 2 or 3 calls. I even got away for a 3/4 mile swim. In the midst of all that, I had a wonderfully surprising interruption.

A man whom I know only slightly came into my office for a meeting. The meeting was entirely business, no personal or pastoral intent whatsoever. But we got talking, and before long he was telling me about his dreams and how they have been delayed. He was beginning to think that he may have lost the chance to see those dreams fulfilled. So I had a chance to talk to him about that, and to give him some ideas on how he might still pursue his dreams. We talked, laughed about interruptions in life, and he left, I think, believing that at 45 it night not be too late. I've bought him a copy of Wild at Heart entirely on the recommendation of a friend, because I'm told that it reminds us as men that we cannot survive if we let our dreams die.

It always amazes me when the Lord chooses to let me be a part of something significant in another person's life. It's why I love being a part of the Kingdom of God, even with all of the warts we currently exhibit. Because He uses us, and guides us, and loves us, all through the hands and lives of our brothers and sisters. And He will do it as often as we will let Him.

Anyways, it was a great day. Especially when it ended at the corn maze and pizza with several of my really good friends and my 2 boys. It was a really great day.

A Glimpse of Fun in a Regular Day

As this is my first blog, I will introduce myself. My name is Bethany Helm and I am the worship leader for Hope Chapel. I am also the wife of Randy Helm, the pastor of our wonderful church.
My other job/profession, is being a psychotherapist in private practice providing outpatient services for individuals and couples. Randy and I have chosen to home school our 3 girls, so I work part time on Mondays and Tuesdays so that I can be home with the girls the rest of the week.

After very full days on Sundays, Monday mornings can be a bit of a bummer as I am usually tired; and finding a way to "change hats" from worship leader, pastor's wife, and Mom to therapist can be a bit of a challenge.

A couple of Mondays ago I was driving to my office on the freeway and noticed a strange looking vehicle approaching. As it moved closer I quickly recognized it as the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile! I laughed out loud and alone in my car I said, "It's the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile". What a fun thing to see!

Upon later reflection, I thanked the Lord for allowing me to be just in the right place at the right time to see the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile. Yes, I thanked Him because I don't believe that it was a coincidence. I believe that the Lord delights in giving us glimpses of fun in regular, ordinary days just to let us know that He knows that life can be hard. I believe that it's our job to notice the glimpse of fun, to laugh instead of just "blow it off" or ignore it, and allow these times to bring a lift or a moment of refreshing into our regular days.

Ode to Fall in AZ (Copied from my personal blog)

The leaves are fallin... wait no...
The air is crisp and I can see my breath...no, not that either...
Time to don our sweatshirts and jacke...nope

I didn't turn my A/C on today...

Relationships

Okay, I've really messed up. While Bethany (who hasn't yet blogged) was the first to bring this up, I was really the driving force behind getting the staff on a blog. And my biggest challenge was Debra, who hates to write, but is very insightful. She has blogged. And that's my first screw-up. I didn't comment publicly. I did tell a number of people about it, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't one of them.

This is why I'm not sure I could ever be a senior pastor. I really do like people well enough, but I manage just often enough to make the kind of mistake that drives little wedges into relationships. Sorry Debra, should have said something.

Second screw-up. I have my own blog, and I knew that starting this one would leave me struggling to figure out where to write - more exactly, when to write here. I had a really good chance, but I posted it on my blog instead. Oops. For penance, later today I will blog about something that happened to me yesterday. Sorry Debra.

BTW, I loved your post.

Hello blogosphere! Ask my husband, my close friends, the other staff, (anyone who talks to me really) and they will confirm that I am not chomping at the bit to start this new hobby. However, I do have lots and lots of opinions about lots and lots of things. So, here I go.

For my first ever blog, I want to share a couple different scenarios that will hopefully bring me to a point that makes sense.

First, it was several years ago when one of my brothers (I have 3 and 1 sister) was trying to argue with me about the fact that the Bible does not say, "Thou shalt go to church". Of course he did not want to hear anything about the places that say "do not forsake the assembling..." kind of things and he didn't want to hear that Jesus went to church, or any other Biblical argument. I've never revisited the subject with him (not yet, anyway), but a couple different events have happened that help me solidify in my mind, why going to church is important (apart from all the Biblical reasons that my brother doesn't want to hear).

About a year ago (maybe longer) I was in church during the "praise and worship" time. I was a few rows behind an older couple that has been married at least 2 of my lifetimes. I happened to notice as the wife lovingly picked up her husbands left hand with both of hers, gently uncurled his crippling fingers and slipped her right hand into his left. It immediately brought tears to my eyes. It still does every time I think about it. What amazing dedication and love was demonstrated in that simple act. What a model for what marriage looks like many, many years down the road. What an honor to know this couple.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. I now have 4 children. #3 is 3 years old and has just begun attending the praise and worship time with me. We were sitting toward the front of the building this time. I noticed Brenden (my 3 yr. old son) look across the aisle and look at Andy and Pastor Randy. I know it had to be those two men, because those were the only two people in his line of sight. Also, those two men had their hands raised, worshiping God. What does my sweet little boy do? He watches them for a short moment and then raised his right hand just like Andy and Pastor Randy. Again, the tears in my eyes. Do I think he was *worshiping God*? Yes I do. I know he doesn't *get it* like adults think they *get it*. But that Sunday he saw worship modeled by two Godly men and he is learning that men (other than just his Dad) worship God.

In children's church, and in adult church, we have been talking about being connected to community and how to do that, why we do that, etc. I know my brother is trying very hard to avoid the conviction that being part of a community of believers is important, but every time this kind of thing happens, it just reconfirms for me that a strong individual faith demands we be part of a community where godliness is modeled and we are held accountable to it.

So there it is. My first blog. Now stop harrassing me Don and Scott!