Wild Thursday

So yesterday morning I mentioned a little about what my Thursday was going to be like but little did I know how amazing it would be. God has put me in the 9th chapter of Mark this week in my studies in teh morning and I have discussed in my other blog the highs and lows and how to face them. Well, I am fully living that out right now this week in my life and I can't emphasize enough how happy I am that I am not studying Job! Yikes!
Wednesday was a decent day, I was in teh office the majority of the time doing the end of the month stats for myself. I in affect had spoken to over 600 students and teachers last month so it was a good month. Which by the way is my plan, I feel God has led me to spend the first 2 years of my time at Freedom doing everything I can to get our name out and make the church recognized. So far, so good on that. But a day in the office is rarely good for someone as go oriented as myself. I will admit I was a little bummed because the day before I wasn't able to go eat lunch at Murray with my usual crowd of kids from the church. I also went to church that night and we had a decent crowd, not one of our larger ones but decent for youth. Tara and I spent some time in the office with Angie crunching some numbers and realizing that many of the things we are hoping to do may not happen as we want because money is starting to get a little tight. GIving is good, we're just facing new challenges in other areas of the budget. So I was a little bummed about that, I have a few families that I have poured my heart and soul into over the past several months and a couple of them are there on Sundays, and a couple of them are rarely seen at church making all kinds of excuses. All of this amounted to a slightly bummed pastor Wednesday night.
Then, Thursday came and happened. I started the day out at Pacetti Bay where I am still sharing with kids about suicide and how to face the feelings of depression and being down.(I'll admit that isn't helping either) But I had an awesome conversation with 2 young girls about facing trials. They asked me about my faith which opened the door for me to share because that is the ground rule on public education. IF they ask you can share, if they don't you can't force it on them. So we had an awesome discussion and that was definitely picking me up.
WEll, at lunch I had to rush off to St. Johns River Community College to share a presentation with Mr. Meehan's Psychology students on domestic violence and healthy relationships. I had about 5 minutes to take a deep breath and prepare for it and it went off flawlessly. I spoke for about 45 minutes and then did some question and answer and then it took me another 45 minutes to get my stuff packed and leave. I had students bombarding me with questions about my ministry, the church and other things. One was a new family in town looking for a laid back baptist church(that's us), another couple who are dating and looking for somewhere that they can be more involved in teh ministries, and about 6 or 7 more that asked where the church is located and what times the services are. One which I have been in a selfish way praying for. There is a girl who I remember from highschool at St. Augustine High, I just remember her face I don't know her name. But, this summer I spent time at several summer camps sharing about bullying and respect. I ran into this young lady there and what she could do with the kids and the way she loved on them and was respected by them left an impression on me. Well, she was one who came up and asked when the services were and where the church was. And one final lady had just gotten out of a troubled marriage and wanted to talk so I sat down with her and her friend and we talked for quite a while about her past, how to mend her heart, her relationship with her father, and most importantly how to rely on Christ to see her through it all. I prayed with them and they said they would love to come visit the church as well.
So there you have it, I didn't even get a chance to sit down in my valley before Jesus swooped me up and took me back to a high!
Oh, and I forgot to mention one thing. After St. Johns I rushed out to Pedro to be a part of the team meal for the freshman football team. I helped out with that and then I hopped in the truck and rushed to get Tara and the girls. Our plan was for me to go to the first half of the pedro freshman game at Creekside and then we would rush off to the St. Augustine freshman game at Bolles. Well, when I got to Creekside the freshman coach Tom Dickerson came over and asked me if I could help coach(they had two coaches missing) He gave me the game plan and the formations and turned me loose. I stood there on the sideline talking to the kids when they came off the field, getting the next team ready and making sure that the special teams guys were paying attention. We won 16-6 and Creekside's only touchdown was a fumble recovery run back about 2 minutes into the game. So I am undefeated as a football coach, considering retiring on top but there's still a lot left in me(to quote Brett Favre) so we'll see what next week brings.
Have a great weekend, come out and root on those Falcons tonight if you can and hope to see you on Sunday!