relinquishment

Today didn't start off too well, except of course that it is our Anniversary! My beautiful wife of, now, eight years was an anchor to my soul through my trials and tribulations.

I arrived at the coffeehouse today to prepare for the Rotary Club coming over to see the place and have lunch and coffee. When I came in, Mary, the building's owner had rearranged all the furniture. She had all her stuff on the main floor and relegated mine to the stage. I felt betrayed after the last couple days of discussion with her had not prepared me for this, in fact she said she liked what we had done. I was angry and disappointed, a feeling that hung like sorrow in my throat all day - a day I was supposed to be celebrating!

My vastly romantic plans was to take Elaine to the Taize service in Saginaw. Well, it was out, and it was free, so Elaine agreed. One drawback to the evening was that we found no sitter. The kids held up admirably but still, not romantic. The service, however, was the cure I needed. God was gracious to me and extremely romantic. Wave after wave of his presence came over me. I couldn't help but tremble, then sheepishly look around to see if anyone had noticed my unseemly convusion. Elaine even asked me pointedly "What are you doing?!" What could I say? It wasn't I who was doing anything. It was like the Holy Spirit was tickling me. It was a great time with a great God, great friends, and the best wife ever.

Thanks God for all that, especially Elaine!

Sunday Night with Tom Trask

Man, I miss Sunday night services. They are the perfect answer to my weekly postpartum depression after preaching. So when Brad Trask sent an invitation to all Michigan credential holders to come out to a Sunday night service, I was into it. His church is only a couple hours away, and he had the Detroit Life Challenge choir singing and his dad preaching.

The service was nice. It wasn't spectacular, or extravagant, just what Sunday night services always were growing up. I wasn't surprised because Brad, and the ministers who showed up were greatly influenced by Tom Trask's ministry and were old-school A/G. Ah, my roots. How I miss a good pentecostal service with out concern for time, and much lingering at the altar. It was such a refreshing and blessing to have the congregation of Brighton A/G pray for the ministers who came out and for Bro. Trask as he moves on.

Speaking of which, when people were wondering why he was leaving, and had a hard time accepting that he just heard from God, I agreed. "Something must have got him praying in that way in the first place right?"

He talked about it a little bit, at this, his last time preaching as the General Supt., and I got the impression that God spoke to him in the course of his regular prayer time. That shouldn't be hard for us to understand, though as I have lamented before, we pentecostal can be an awfully pragmatic bunch and demand rationales for all our movements. He said that he prayed about it from Nov. to the end of July after he heard God tell him to move on, just to be sure he heard right. His description of the process gives me renewed faith in his obedience. I just thought you might want to know.