From Whom All Blessings Flow

Good Morning.

It's another beautiful one around these parts.

I feel I have so much to share with you and yet don't know where to start.

How 'bout here?

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's........

Wait.

Wrong superhero.

Anyway. It's Wonder Woman. In onezie pajamas.

Onezie pajamas without a back hatch for easy bathroom adventures. Please don't let this fact be known. I don't want dark evil forces knowing her weakness.

We are entering homecoming week and with that comes theme days. One theme this week is 'Super Hero' day and Ms. Liz wanted to be Wonder Woman.

I mean who doesn't?

And what better way to kick off Homecoming week and Wonder Woman training, than a 5K run where people stand on the sidelines and whip colored cornstarch at your head? Sound like fun?

Ms. Liz thought so and came home looking well, colorful.

While she was out saving the world in her onezie and battling colored cornstarch, the boys decided enough was enough. They are Kansas City Royals baseball fans. The Royals have actually been doing quite well this year which is new.

Farmer Boy had bought tickets for their home game this weekend against the Detroit Tigers. The two teams have been battling most of the season for top place in their division.

Farmer Boy kept it a surprise. He woke Will up at 7:30 a.m. yesterday morning with tickets and a brand spanking new Royals T-shirt.

Will lay in his bed. Dazed and confused for only a minute. He said, "Cool!", jumped out of bed, whipped on his clothes and thundered down the stairs ready to go.

I know he'll hate that I say this but come on, look at how cute he is!

I love this boy!

It was a beautiful day and a great game. The Tigers had won the first two games of the series but yesterday, since Farmer Boy and Will where there, the Royals finally got it together and won.

The above play was the highlight. Farmer Boy and Will had to show Liz this play immediately after arriving home last night. They were jazzed. They had seats on the first base side so could see this play clearly. It is a great play.

They wouldn't do it,  but I believe they wanted to sing the word, "Glorious!" just because their day was fantastic.

I stayed home. I went to church. Napped. Ate potato chips.  Read.

Several years ago I read this book. Have you read it?

You really should. Especially if you are Mennonite. It is hilarious, touching and informative. I love it.

The only problem I had with the book was that the author, Rhoda Janzen, who endeared herself to me, was a very educated woman without faith.  I wanted her Mennonite background, her Mennonite family, her Mennonite growing up stories to be more than just a witty book. I wanted it all to be meaningful in that it was her story of how God reached out to her and she reached back. He was reaching but she was turning her back and I felt disappointed and saddened.

Yesterday I started this book.

Same author.

Her story continues with her meeting and falling in love with a Pentecostal man and her battle with breast cancer.

Through God's continued efforts to woo her, she finally grabs onto faith and writes about it with thoughtful eloquence and humor.

I'm not finished yet but last night as I was reading along, her words stopped me dead in my tracks. They weren't profound or difficult but they are doing a work in me and so I thought I'd share them with you.

"God works through imperfect people, through imperfect churches, through imperfect faith."

"Change means change. Change means I have to do something different."

But sometimes growth happens best when we accept discomfort and difference."

"I know in my knower that now I needed to shift my focus from whatever was missing to whatever was pure, lovely, virtuous, of good report and filled with praise."

And as she struggled with the Pentecostal church she found herself in, and how different, and perhaps in her educated opinion, misguided in some theological elements, she said this...

"I would focus on what this church had, not on what it didn't have."

At those words, with everything I've been struggling with as I stay at home looking for a job that I'm not sure I want, my Mennonite soul, sat up and sang the Doxology.

Praise God from who all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above ye Heavenly Hosts.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

And all God's children, Mennonite or not, said.....
AMEN.