Lessons From My Dog

Every morning I wake up to the buzz and alarm of my cell phone clear across the room. I get up to turn off my first alarm, grab my phone and plop back on my bed until alarms 2 and 3 force me to face the reality the I must get up.

I am not a morning person.

I never feel well in the mornings. It's as if all the pollen in my apartment has made its way over to my bed and nested in my pillow. If life followed my wishes, we would not start the day until at least 9:00am...for some reason the world does not agree.

Being the anti-morning person that I am, I usually am not all that enthused about jump starting my day.

Ollie and I are a lot alike. It's funny really, but one way we are very different is in our welcoming of a new day.

Every morning as I attempt to drag out the wake up time to just-a-few-more-minutes, I lay as still as possible in my attempts to trick Ollie into thinking that it's not really time to get up...but the alarm dooms me once again and Ollie knows it, and nudges his nose under my hand as I attempt to peal my face off my pillow.

When I finally bring myself to get out of bed, I sit up to a smiling fur ball. Every morning without a hitch, he comes to me with his tail wagging and ready for his morning belly rub. He is so excited that he can hardly stand it. He runs up on my bed and back down again only to return for a snuggle.

Every morning I am remind that each and every day is a gift worth celebrating. Each and every day I have the opportunity to praise God and welcome in the morning with joy and anticipation of what's to come.

Thank you Ollie.

Embers

So these past couple of weeks the idea of relational ministry has been sinking it's way deeper into my heart. I wasn't really sure what has been giving me this uneasy feeling, but I think this is part of it. Let me explain. I am soon to approach my two year mark of the grand move to Texas. With this mini-versery making it's way closer I have been thinking through how this year has been different than the past, and what this next year holds (don't worry Texan friends, I'm not going anywhere). Somewhere along this journey I decided that I would let myself "be okay" with being here. Somewhere or at some time, I decided that "being okay" was better than not being okay and I allowed a couple of roots to start to grow. As a result, relationships have developed (don't worry Indiana friends, I'm not talking about a mystery man). By allowing myself to be okay, I allowed some people to "see" me. I let some people hear my story and understand this crazy, quirky, "yankee" (never call me "yankee"...but seriously, don't) and through it I realized that I long for more. See, I think really, we all long for more. We long for deeper, more intimate relationships. We long for conversations that never end. We long for mentorships. Okay, stop generalizing it... I long for deeper, more intimate relationships. I long for conversations that never end. I long for a mentor. In this past month or so, I've caught glimmers of it. I've found myself surrounded by like-minded people and it takes all my will power not to latch on for dear life and beg it to never end. That's what relational ministry looks like. It's outreach, yes, but it's also in-reach. It's right here. It's each of us, every day, intentionally allowing ourselves to get caught up in each others lives and to allow conversations to "go there." So now what? Now where do we go from here? We let the glimmers turn into embers that become an ever constant warmth in our hearts, so that it's no longer fleeting, but is surrounding. I can't wait for that day.