Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for people who have intentionally come into my life and inspired me.

Mrs. Pocock is a spitfire of a woman who has forever touch my life.  I remember her when I was young; my brother, sister and I would fight to sit beside her in church because she would always bring a second purse to church that was full of candy and things to do.  I remember my brother getting the prize spot most of the time.  Probably because he was the youngest.

In my early 20’s my grandmother passed away.  I sat beside her every Sunday in church, we shared a hymnal and I so enjoyed my Sunday mornings worshipping with her.  The Sunday after the funeral, Mrs. Pocock came and sat beside me and said she wanted to by my adopted Grandma and that I could share the hymnal with her each week.  She didn’t have the beautiful voice of my grandmother but I was grateful none-the-less.

She has always had a quick wit about her and she still makes me laugh till my sides hurt.  You never know what is going to come out of her mouth.  One line that I will always remember is when she was talking about someone she knew and as a side comment she said, “She has a face only a mother could love.”  It was one of those moments when you didn’t know whether to be shocked or roll across the floor laughing!

The girls and I were able to visit with her during our recent trip to Ontario.  Here she is 99 years young!  What a precious woman.  I am so thankful that the girls had the opportunity to meet her and catch a glimpse of this special woman that touch my life in such a unique way.

 

While I was in Ontario I thought that I would have so much time to write blogs, and I wrote one in two weeks. So I now have a lot to catch up on. I have been writing a list of things that I would like to write about on here.

So here is one thing that has drove me nuts for years and is still very evident in our society today. Years ago I worked at Burger King. While working there I saw all sorts of people and groups come and go. And the worst behaved groups that would come in were the church youth groups. They would destroy the place and leave their garbage everywhere. The staff would groan every friday night when we saw them walking in from the various churches in our community. I would have much rather been working when the after-the-bar groups came in, hey, most of the time they would give me tips.

I kept this in mind when my husband and I became youth pastors. We are representatives of Jesus Christ, and I want to bring no shame onto his kingdom. I remember being with our group at a local fast food establishment and I asked the youth to clean up their tables and a parent stopped me and then told them to leave their garbage on the tables because the staff were paid to do it. So everyone just got up and left and I stayed behind to clean the tables myself. How do people come to that mentality? Right now where I live we have such a shortage of people working, most people are working long hours and most business are short staffed. Do they really have time to clean up my garbage? How hard is it to take your tray and dump it in the garbage? If God can't trust you with the little things, why should He trust you with the large things we continuously ask for?

I also remember another time when a bus of our youth stopped by a 7-11 to get munchies for a trip. I told them that they needed to leave the place better than they found it. So we all went in and got our slushies, etc. for the trip. I was the last to leave just to make sure that we had everyone. As the last of the youth were walking out one of the employees said while rolling her eyes, "I'll go clean up the mess." Then she walked over to the slushie area and found a surprize. She went back behind the counter just as I was arriving to purchase my munchies. She looks at me and says, "That is the first time that a big group of youth had come into the store and had not made a mess. Thank you." I was so excited to go out to the bus and tell everyone, THANK YOU! Thank you for being Jesus, showing Jesus and sharing Jesus through your actions!

While I was away my husband went out for brunch on a Sunday morning at a local restaurant. My husband and I both enjoy people watching. He was sat near the entrance. He watched as the different churches started arriving for their lunch. And he was embrassed as a follower of Jesus Christ by what he witnessed. Generally everyone coming in was rather rude and expected preferential treatment. Two older ladies walked in, went to the front of the line, searched out a table for themselves, which had not yet been cleared, sat down, called a waitress over and demanded that she clear the table and come back for their orders. I think that they might be misinterrupting the verse that says the first will be last and the last will be first.

I'm sorry but doesn't the Bible say that we are to be servants? Not demand first class service. Where ever we are and whatever we are doing we are representatives of Jesus Christ, I long to hear the words "My good and faithful servant" Matthew 25:21, not "You wicked and lazy servant." v.26