Fun Day

Today was a fun day. I went with a few people from my church to downtown Milan and gave out free pop and water to people. The best thing about it was there was completely no strings attached, which really caught people off guard. It was pretty awesome seeing the expressions on people's faces as you walk towards their cars. They have that, "Oh no, somebody's coming toward us trying to sell us, or get something from us look". They we told them it was completely free they were totally surprised. We just gave the pop and water out. On the drink was a sticker that says, "Because God Loves You", and that's what we told people why we were doing it, if they asked.

Giving without an expectation is completly liberating. The purpose of our day was to give and we gave. If God chooses to do something with our gifts it's in his hands and not ours. People experienced God's love first hand today, and I hope (if they haven't already) they will be spurred on to want more.

Rich

A great quote on "Community"

I came accross this book today (The Inner Voice of Love by Henri Nouwen) at the library that has a lot of great thoughts. One that really grabbed my attention was a great thought about community.

"You have to move gradually from crying outward-
crying out for people who you think can fulfill your
needs - to crying inward to the place where you
can let yourself be held and carried by God, who
has become incarnate in the humanity of those
who love you in community. No one person can
fulfill all your needs. But the community can truly
hold you. The community can let you experience the
fact, beyond your anguish, there are human hands
that hold you and show you God's faithful love."

Cry inward (to God) and open yourself up to the loving, caring hands of Christ. Pray that God's people, his church, his very body will be the hands to hold you up and show you God's faithful love. Be those hands to someone else.

Dealing with disappointment

What would it be like to live a life without regrets? To lay your head on the pillow at night and not recount the failures and mistakes of the day. We never quite measure up to the life we want to live, the father or husband we want to be. We trudge on, doing or best believing it's good enough. That someone above is looking down on us with grace and mercy understanding our plight. There is a better way to live, a life of no regret and there are days when I stumble into that realm. But that world seems so fanciful and unreal. We are caught between two worlds and being pulled by both. Thus our disappointment, our longing for the better life, but our inability to escape our present course. Which world is real?

Reality is the world in which you choose to live. So I choose to live in that other world. I choose to believe in grace and hope of better day, a better me, and brighter future.

Rich