week in review

i'm on the verge of drifting away into an afternoon nap right about now, so it might not be the best time for blogging. but here goes nothing.

this morning was spent at a baby shower for one of my coworkers. followed by a brief meeting about our last 2 weeks of school.

two weeks of school. that's it. no more kiddies, no more Kelly, no more Charlotte, for that matter. my YouthWorks summer is rapidly approaching. and as i expected, now that my time is dwindling in the life that I know and change hastens, i am starting to mourn the passing of this year and the things i will not be here for this summer. but all sentimentality aside...ONLY TWO WEEKS LEFT! YES!

as for the baby shower, it was nice. we ate cake at 10 in the morning. i watched in wonder as the mom-to-be unwrapped a gift of ringed ice packs...for one's breasts. the other ladies in the room were stunned at the advance in mommy technology over the past 10 years. i, of course, was stunned by the need for such mommy technology. indeed, i listened all morning to birthing stories, pregnancy stories, breast feeding stories (you get the idea).

in other news, this past week was teacher appreciation week. which i think should be renamed teachers get fat off oversized candy bars week. no joke. if you have a chocolate craving, come visit me. we also received beautiful fresh flowers that i happily dispersed in vases around the house. and for the scrapbook--"a picture of my teacher" drawn by the three-year-olds. priceless.

this week was also eventful in that i met with the district superintendent of the Charlotte United Methodist Church. this was the first real step in beginning the "inquiry" process for ministry candidacy with the UMC. it was an intimidating interview, but I never got truly nervous, and it ended up being just a nice conversation with a dear man. though i wasn't able to run right alongside him in name-dropping professors at duke and emory, i did leave the meeting feeling good about entering this process. i also think i discovered the reason why the process scares me a bit--it's being under the thumb of the Methodist church for the rest of my life. which in a lot of ways could be a good thing. and with the deacon track (which i am 95% sure i want to pursue), i'll have the freedom to work in social orgs or schools, will be non-itinerant, and won't be bound by district-ordained geographical assignments. that helps me breathe easier...but it leaves me asking, am I ready to sign on with the UMC for good? to be so denominational? to let them have, at least in some way, control over who I am as a minister, a worshipper, a disciple? maybe that's a little extreme--but i think it's where my fear stems from. which is why i'm thankful that i have a year-long (at least) inquiry process before me. so i can inquire.

i was thinking today that it's kind of funny for a Christ follower to be so intimidated by the idea of relinquishing control of certain things to the Church. because that is what Jesus calls us to do with our entire lives--hand over control, to Him, the head of the Church. but i'm starting to see what that looks like, what it means practically--i'm working in rural NC this summer, with teenagers. i'm inquiring into ordained ministry. those things definitely were not my ideas ;) but i already have glimpses of what great experiences will spring forth.

God pushed me rather unexpectedly into another endeavor this week, albeit rather small. my pastor asked me to lead b-stud again this week. our assigned readings were quite short, and i was hoping to develop a creative way to extend our discussions. As I sometimes do, one night I pulled out my guitar before reading the Bible to spend some personal worship time before God. And I was overwhelmed with the urge to lead worship at our b-stud. Let me remind everyone that you can only call me a guitar player if your definition of "to play" is quite broad. I know the basic chords. I can't really strum (whether because I am entirely self-taught and need some professional help, or because I am a leftie playing a right-handed guitar, or both). But God pushed me, and I think it was not only because our small group has been completely devoid of musical worship and it would be a refreshing and uplifting change, but because music is a huge part of who I am, and a essential medium through which I meet with God. And I would really really love worship leading to be a part of my ministry someday, in some capacity. So God said, "ok then Whitney, take this guitar I've given you, these chords I've helped you to learn, this voice I've given you to sing, and just do it. Make a joyful noise. There will only be a few people listening besides Me." So I did--I stepped out on a limb to minister and it was beautiful. Beautiful in that God was among us, being worshipped...not necessarily in the chords I was hitting ;)

this week i said good-bye to my Sunday school class. i won't be teaching anymore, since i'm leaving soon. i know i brag about these kids a lot, but i'm going to some more. this week we talked about Iraq and September 11th (they're 4th and 5th graders--mere toddlers in 2001!). and they managed to get from a game of 'Mother May I' to our as yet unintroduced virture of the month (obedience) and from there to our Bible story (Jonah). they are smart, intuitive kids. and i'm so glad they're coming to church, because in the vein of a question in previous months ("you're telling me Zeus isn't real?!), I was questioned about God's true sovereignity over the storm--"wait, what about Mother Nature?" and they are only beginning to learn that running from God ("heck no I wouldn't go to Iraq even if God spoke to me out of the sky!") is how we end up in the belly of a big fish. or covered in that fish's vomit when God decides to spit us back up.

speaking of the big fish, we had a lot of debate about whether it was a whale or just a big fish. one dear boy proposed that someone should just gather up all the Bibles from all over the world and see how many said "fish" and how many said "whale." aren't they clever? love it. he'll probably be a Bible scholar one day...