Monday, April 14, 2014

Beautiful Day




I wanted to share this song especially today because I have had one of the most glorious of beautiful days!



Friendship Church was the place to be Sunday, April 13, 2014! We watched NINE people be baptized! It is always a blessing to see even one person publicly declare their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior! But when you watch nine in one service, you are blessed immensely! There was a set of brothers whose father suddenly died recently. There was a young couple who had been baptized out of fear for “the wrath of God” but now have come to see the desire that God for them to be close to Him. There was a young mother who I lovingly call my “Next Gen Jen” (as in the next generation of Kirsten because I think she’s so much like me!) We also watched a mother, father, and their ten-year old son be baptized. The boy’s parents were beaming with pride for their son but their personal joy was even more spectacular! One woman had a story for so many of us to learn from. After being diagnosed with cancer and being hospitalized during her terrible side effects due to chemotherapy and radiation, she felt God calling her to His Side. She made one of the most difficult submissive decisions while in a hospital bed sick as could be! She turned her life over to God right there! From that moment on, she said her life hasn’t been the same! It has been wonderful because of God!
Beautiful! Blessed! Loved! Forgiven! I believe that’s what it’s all about! It’s about being forgiven of our sins because God sacrificed His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, on that cross for my sins and for yours too! God loves us that much! I’m amazed when I think about that love that God has for me and all my mistakes and sins! For that I’m grateful! If you don’t know Christ as your Savior, you need to NOW! He’s there and waiting for you to turn to Him and ask Him into your heart! Let Him come in!
Over the last couple of months I have been sitting on the front row with another dear friend and haven’t realized until now how many people there really are there and how many people our church can really seat. This Sunday, I have a new appreciation for the size of our church! I was in the sound booth this Sunday, covering the PowerPoint for my dear friend who had kept her granddaughter overnight. From that vantage point, you can really get a feeling for the amount of people that were there. The church was almost standing room only! As the service began, people were still coming in and couldn’t find places to sit. The greeting team was trying to help visitors find SEATS! Regular members who were used to the “regular” seats had to find other places to sit! (I hope no family was separated because of the lack of seats!) What a blessing that is to not have room for everyone!
We all worried and prayed the rain would hold off until the children were able to have their Easter egg hunt – and it did! All the children gathered at the doors of the front of the church to head across the highway for the Great Easter Hunt of 2014. When the doors were opened, our wonderful parking crew was waiting in the road to help them get across the street safely! One of my other dear friends was wearing heels and just couldn’t walk fast enough to get her three-year old to the hunt to satisfy me so I snatched him up and off we ran! Of course, I’m so out of shape I couldn’t breathe for ten minutes but it was so worth it when I saw the basket of eggs he successfully found!





And then came the FOOD! WOW! The food was all amazing and we feasted – especially on the fried chicken and desserts! Our wonderful pastor's wife works tirelessly on preparing the setup for these times! I'm not sure she realizes how much we appreciate everything she does in the background! Thank you for doing what you do! Once again, with so many people attending the service, we had difficulty with finding enough seats for everyone to eat. But necessity is the mother of invention, right? Tables from the Friendship Kids’ Room were brought out to accommodate a few more people – picture bright green round tables about a foot and a half tall with matching chairs!
My beautiful day wasn’t all about church because it continued the rest of the day thanks to the blessings of God. Saturday, I got my new battery for my riding mower installed and was able to mow the entire front yard for the first time this year! Finally! I did mow some of the backyard but I had a huge limb fall off during the last week so the upper portion will have to wait until after my neighbor comes this week to cut it up for firewood!  Within the hour of finishing the mowing, the rain came! More glorious rain that we need so desperately! My house might be a wreck but my yard looks fabulous!