God Is Greater Than Oversleeping Or Spilled Coffee

That's my mantra for today. God is bigger than the way my day started.

I started a new antihistamine last night. Antihistamines knock the socks off of me every time, so much so that I cannot take them during the day because--no matter what--I WILL fall asleep when I take them. Period. So at 9:00 this morning, there's a kindly knock on my bedroom door: "J, arnth yu suppusd tubby ump?" (Interpreted from the muffled transliteration: Aren't you supposed to be up?) AHHHHHH! Not only am I supposed to be up, I should be walking out the door! I have a class to teach at 9:30 a.m., and it's fifteen minutes away!

This realization is followed by my personal best time for getting presentable, and I am out the door by 9:17 a.m. And I did drive the speed limit. And, I feel, as a personal reward for such restraint at that time*, God turned every light green as I approached. He can be really cool about stuff like this at a moment like that. (Okay, really, this is mercy; just trying to be funny, people!) I pulled into the church parking lot at 9:29 a.m.

But there are still copies of the lesson to be made, and though the levels of adrenaline in my system are REALLY high right now, it would still be good to get a few drops of caffeine in my system. So I start the copier running and dash across the hall, where I try not to trample fellow believers in my attempt to dump into my cup the junk that makes coffee palatable. Then I dash back across the hall, set my cup on the counter and turn to grab my copies. This would be when my bag--also on the counter--decides to shift its center of gravity and redecorate the church, sending the caramel-colored coffee all over the office...oh, and me. AHHHHH!

Off I dash to the restroom to grab feebly insufficient paper towels and return to dab at my mess. Deciding that the coffee was no longer worth the battle, I ask the youth pastor's wife to pray for me and scramble down the hall. Wouldn't you figure that this would be the one week my middle-schoolers decided to turn up on time? But you know, it was still only 9:35 a.m., and they were so relaxed and enjoying themselves, that the class simply began to unfold in a real, communicative way. We slipped straight into prayer time, 'cause one girl already felt comfortable enough to share her request. Usually, this is an environment that I spend 10-15 minutes to creating, but God was way ahead of me this week...and it was wonderful.

And since we saw both grace and mercy in our lesson today, I should point out that the mercy of the green lights mentioned above was counterpointed with this grace: One of the women from my small group apparently got wind of my predicament, and 10 minutes into class, delivered a perfectly souped-up cup of coffee to my class. Now THAT'S grace!

And here's one more little gift given to me today: My entire class drew and decorated a poster with a picture of me, and many kind words. And though I am faceless ("'cause faces are hard, Miss J!"), they painted me in my favorite sweater...the one I was wearing today, ironically. :-) It was kinder and more encouraging than they will ever know. I love those little boogers...

Now in case you missed the lesson this morning, we did a readers' theater of Saul's conversion from two recordings, Acts 9 & 22, followed by an 'ACTION' game, my own personal adaption of Bingo, but of course based on the book we're studying--ACTS. You really should have been there. It was a hoot. And we learned that just as in this story, our class probably includes two kinds of people: those (like Saul) who don't yet know Jesus and are fighting Him; and those (like Ananias) who do know Jesus but don't like what He's calling them to do. And you know what? Neither of them got away with it. When Jesus calls to you, you're gonna respond. Are you listening?

So that was my morning, 9:00 to 10:50 a.m. Whew...I think I'm gonna need a nap.

Blessings,
-J

P.S. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I wasn't prepared for class? Well thankfully, I was already fully prepared for this morning! Could you imagine if I hadn't been? To the praise of His glory!

*This is bad theology and I know it, so don't go getting any ideas or start believing this is true or something silly like that...

(c) 2008