Random Thoughts: snow, coffee and conversation

• Man, I'm feeling sore. I spent a couple of hours today shovelling and my body is not used to it. It makes me long for the days when I worked hands on with the kids at the youth center and exercise (in the form of basketball, dodgeball, "monkey's run", roller skating, tag, etc) was part of my daily ministry. Now I spend most of my work time sitting (at my desk, in the car, at meetings, etc).


• Although the petty soreness I'm feeling as I type this doesn't compare to the pain he discusses in his books, I am reminded of how Dr. Paul Brand discusses pain as a gift from God. Check out his books if you get the chance. Today I can be grateful for a body that functions well enough to become sore from physical exertion and work.


• After my last bout of shovelling today, I spent a little time warming up with coffee and conversation at the youth center with one of our youth staff, Michael. 40 minutes of conversation about movies, biblical interpretation, sports, marriage (what percentage of the time our wives are correct and we are wrong- somewhere between 85 and 99.9%), exegesis vs. eisegesis, the kids we work with, rules of dating from our college days, and desert island dvds. I think the fellowship and conversation served to warm my body and soul more than the coffee ever could. As much as I like a good cup of coffee, it is the conversation that make a coffee house an inviting place isn't it?


• Shovelling also reminded me of a conversation I had at church on Sunday. A woman in my church who lives right behind the youth center came up to me to share how grateful she was for our Teen Haven youth. After the nasty storm on Valentine's Day, she wasn't sure when she would ever get her car free from the piles of ice and snow that the snowplows had buried her car behind. As she was beginning what she thought would be an interminable process, some young men from the youth center came to her rescue. They took over the work and stayed until her car was completely free. What a testimony of love and neighborly concern.


• Snow provides a visible reminder of God's creativity and power, and an opportunity for us to demonstrate his loving concern to our neighbors (if we'll only take advantage of it).

-Jack Crowley, Teen Haven