Our God is an Awesome God!!!

Just had to post and share this. Aside from owing the state of Alabama $114, I had an amazing day! While driving home, I saw my e-mail light was flashing on my phone. When I stopped to use the bathroom and get something to drink, I checked it. (No, not while driving, as addicted as I may be to my crackberry, I draw the line at checking e-mails while driving.) I found an e-mail from Debby Bowers, Brook Hills' Assimilation Minister. It generated a few questions in my mind so I called her to ask my questions. While talking to her she mentioned that her ministry assistant was quitting and would I be willing to be the temporary ministry assistant. Would I?! How was Debby to know that her question was a HUGE answer to prayer? She was even willing to work around my schedule issues when they arise. This is so amazing because I spent much of the weekend focused on monetary issues and was coming back to try and find a part-time job to help pay some bills. Here a job was basically dropped in my lap. How awesome is it that God gives us what we need before we even have a chance to share the request with people asking for prayer?? Needless to say, I will be very busy in the next few weeks trying to balance dissertation data collection and working basically full-time but God has provided and it's my responsibility to follow this through. Praising the Lord tonight for sure!!

Life Update and Concert

I did hear back from IHS that they have my application. Of course, nothing beyond that. Dadgum government beurocrats. I guess it's just another way God is teaching me patience. Or maybe insight into His sense of humor. As most of you know (unless you've been hiding under a rock) Atlanta was hit pretty hard by a tornado Friday night. One of the venues damaged was the Georgia World Congress Center, the scheduled home of the CDC job fair I was planning to attend. Continuing along my patience/God's sense of humor journey, the job fair was cancelled. UGH! Oh well, I got to spend the day working on a paper I'm writing with my advisor and catching up on some Bible reading.

One nice thing from this weekend was I got to attend the Steven Curtis Chapman concert in Macon last night. It was the final night of his "Live in This Moment" tour and they came ready to play. The concert lasted 3 hours! Really unheard of in this day and age. It's kind of neat to see how his music has progressed since I last saw him in concert (15 years ago). His music and the message have matured. He has some beautiful songs that have such a wonderful message behind them. He's also got two of his sons in the band with him now. Both are very talented young men. One of them, Caleb is working on branching out on his own I think.

An interesting side note to the concert...I'm always amazed at how God gives you what you need to hear when you need to hear it regardless of the venue. Last night, SCC played a good bit of his old stuff and the format was done through listener requests on his website. Some of the songs played were "Great Expectations" and "God is God (and I am not)." These are not songs he usually sings in concerts so I know it was a divine appointment and God wanted me to hear that message. It just came through a different setting.

I guess that's enough of an update; I'm off to do my Alabama taxes. Done with the feds and getting a refund. :-) Let's see how much I owe Alabama...

Don'tcha Love DVR?

I love watching TV on my DVR. I feel so much more productive. I can skip commercials, boring AI performances and annoying Ryan Secreast babble. How sad is this? But, I can watch shows I enjoy and still have time for other things. God gives us technology for a reason. :-)

On another note: still no word from the IHS. I even e-mailed the contact person to check and though she usually e-mails rather quickly (within 2 hours), this time I haven't heard from her since I sent the e-mail at 8:15 Monday morning. I'm trying to tell myself that she might be on vacation or out sick, I just want to hear something. I feel so strongly that this is where God wants me. Am I projecting what I want? Sometimes I just wish God still spoke through burning bushes. :-)

On yet another note: have you checked out airfare lately? Good Grief! The cheapest ticket to AZ right now is $316 and that one is on tiny planes and leaves at 6:00 on Continental. The Delta flight I took last October is over $450! The big prayer tonight is that flight prices will moderate or God will open the floodgates of financial support for me. I don't really care which. :-)

How Great is Our God?!

So, I heard from OneWay that the May trip I wanted was getting close to full so I e-mailed practically begging for one spot. I also asked how much I owed. I knew I had a credit I just wasn't sure how much. So, Sheryl e-mailed me back that yes there was a spot and I had a $300 credit. That completely pays for my trip!! Minus airfare of course. Where the awesome God part comes in is that I didn't think I had nearly that large of a credit in my account. It's obvious God wants me in Arizona in May. Now we just have to pray down airline ticket prices. :-)

And pray that the federal government (namely IHS) gets in gear and lets me know something. Even proof they have my application would be nice. I know, I know patience is a virtue.

Irony Anyone?

This is a headline from my hometown newspaper:

Crematorium building burns at Gray funeral home

You just can't make this stuff up. :-)

Changing the World

I added the Margaret Mead quote this evening mainly because I can't get it out of my head. I've been thinking about it for a while in the context of how Christians have changed the world. If you really think about it, Christians have never changed the world using a mass group effort. In fact, mass group efforts usually fail and make Christians look silly (Disney boycott anyone). Getting to the root of the matter, Jesus used small groups (12 and then 3) and then unleashed those 12 to change the world forever. The first church had only 120 people. They rocked the world like never before. Small groups are still making mass change all over the world: feeding the hungry, healing the sick, loving the unloved. That's how the world will be won for Christ, by showing His love and sharing the Gospel. Think about it. Whose life can you change?