Here it is! The next installment of the video portion. I told you I would introduce you to the people in my world.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
@donmilleris Manuscripts
@donmilleris's book Blue Like Jazz changed the way I looked at the dream in my heart. Donald Miller was someone who's writing style was much like mine and he had a New York Times Best Seller. You could get published writing the way that I did.
When I read his books it was the first time that I connected to a writing the way I connect to music. I am in love with the way Donald Miller puts words together. It has opened my eyes to certain aspects of life and how to represent Jesus, and God has used his writing to speak directly to me in an answer to life changing circumstances. Read just the Author's Note in Through Painted Deserts! If you want that story ask and I'll tell you. It's pretty amazing!
Hopefully, by now I have demonstrated my passion for Donald Miller's writing. I need you to understand this as to it is important to the next part of the story.
Miller has a new book coming out this month. Last month he kicked off a contest to promote his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The contest?
The Hidden Manuscripts. His concept was to hide 60 manuscripts in cities scattered around America. Each day he would twitter and/or Facebook the locations of two manuscripts and whomever got there first got to keep it! Each manuscript came with a letter from Miller which contained a cell phone number that the winner would call at the completion of the book.
People make fun of Twitter. But I LOVE Twitter. @gnay is hilarious and it promotes this blog etcetera etcetera! In August the contest took off and each day my cell phone would vibrate with the text that contained the coveted location. And each day I would hope that it would come to a town where someone I knew lived and could go get it.
Memphis: I sent an email to my Aunt Linda in Cordova and asked her if she was close to the location would she go get it?
The text came and she was across town. STRIKE ONE!
Nashville: Yeah right, it's the home of Thomas Nelson it took like four minutes for that one to be found
Washington DC: THE best person lived in DC for this challenge and she was one board. She was following @donmilleris and waiting for the tweet...it came...but only stating that it had already been claimed! STRIKE TWO!
One Monday I got a tweet to my phone saying that VA was tomorrow. I was like cool...in my heart though I was convinced that it would be near Liberty or DC or Richmond. Tuesday morning I was in a meeting in my boss's office. It wrapped up a few minutes after 11am and I came back to my desk. I checked my phone and there it was! The location of today's manuscript: 508 Central Dr, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 Suite 106. It was 11:04 and the text was time stamped at 10:47 - had it been too much time? I quickly Googled it and it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.
I told my boss I needed to step out for a few minutes and being awesome she said, sure thing. I hit print, grabbed the paper off the machine, and was out the door, praying for favor the whole way there.
When I pulled up it was a little strip building in an industrial/business district. I got out and meekly stood just inside the door. There was a man on the phone walking around who smiled at me and knocked on a door jam just up the hall as he passed. A blonde woman walked out with a warm smile and asked if she could help me.
"I don't suppose you still have the manuscript do you?" I asked her.
"Actually, we do."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we've been waiting since 7:30. We didn't know how it was going to happen."
She and I chat back and forth and tell our sides of the story, all the while I am smiling from ear to ear. She hands me a giant manila envelope and tells me there is a letter to hang on the door once it was found. I smiled at her and thank her as I leave.
I got in my car and tried to text my girls who had been believing and trying to help me get it in other cities. I was shaking so badly out of excitement all I could get out was, "GOT THE MANUSCRIPT!!" Then I called my friend Matty, who I think we became as good of friends as we are due to mutual love of Blue Like Jazz, and hollered into his voicemail that I had gotten the manuscript!
I can't wait to call him. I can't wait to ask him how he does it. How he decides what goes in and what doesn't. I'm so excited to talk with a writer that I love and understand and see what ideas come out of the conversation. I received a lot of flack in college for my content and his content was a best seller. I can't wait. It's like a musician being able to pick the brain of Bono!
I still find myself saying, I can't believe that I found it. That I got there first. But I did and it's exciting and I wanted you to know.
Big week of marriages and engagements...CONGRATS TO ALL!!!!
When I read his books it was the first time that I connected to a writing the way I connect to music. I am in love with the way Donald Miller puts words together. It has opened my eyes to certain aspects of life and how to represent Jesus, and God has used his writing to speak directly to me in an answer to life changing circumstances. Read just the Author's Note in Through Painted Deserts! If you want that story ask and I'll tell you. It's pretty amazing!
Hopefully, by now I have demonstrated my passion for Donald Miller's writing. I need you to understand this as to it is important to the next part of the story.
Miller has a new book coming out this month. Last month he kicked off a contest to promote his new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The contest?
The Hidden Manuscripts. His concept was to hide 60 manuscripts in cities scattered around America. Each day he would twitter and/or Facebook the locations of two manuscripts and whomever got there first got to keep it! Each manuscript came with a letter from Miller which contained a cell phone number that the winner would call at the completion of the book.
People make fun of Twitter. But I LOVE Twitter. @gnay is hilarious and it promotes this blog etcetera etcetera! In August the contest took off and each day my cell phone would vibrate with the text that contained the coveted location. And each day I would hope that it would come to a town where someone I knew lived and could go get it.
Memphis: I sent an email to my Aunt Linda in Cordova and asked her if she was close to the location would she go get it?
The text came and she was across town. STRIKE ONE!
Nashville: Yeah right, it's the home of Thomas Nelson it took like four minutes for that one to be found
Washington DC: THE best person lived in DC for this challenge and she was one board. She was following @donmilleris and waiting for the tweet...it came...but only stating that it had already been claimed! STRIKE TWO!
One Monday I got a tweet to my phone saying that VA was tomorrow. I was like cool...in my heart though I was convinced that it would be near Liberty or DC or Richmond. Tuesday morning I was in a meeting in my boss's office. It wrapped up a few minutes after 11am and I came back to my desk. I checked my phone and there it was! The location of today's manuscript: 508 Central Dr, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 Suite 106. It was 11:04 and the text was time stamped at 10:47 - had it been too much time? I quickly Googled it and it was RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.
I told my boss I needed to step out for a few minutes and being awesome she said, sure thing. I hit print, grabbed the paper off the machine, and was out the door, praying for favor the whole way there.
When I pulled up it was a little strip building in an industrial/business district. I got out and meekly stood just inside the door. There was a man on the phone walking around who smiled at me and knocked on a door jam just up the hall as he passed. A blonde woman walked out with a warm smile and asked if she could help me.
"I don't suppose you still have the manuscript do you?" I asked her.
"Actually, we do."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we've been waiting since 7:30. We didn't know how it was going to happen."
She and I chat back and forth and tell our sides of the story, all the while I am smiling from ear to ear. She hands me a giant manila envelope and tells me there is a letter to hang on the door once it was found. I smiled at her and thank her as I leave.
I got in my car and tried to text my girls who had been believing and trying to help me get it in other cities. I was shaking so badly out of excitement all I could get out was, "GOT THE MANUSCRIPT!!" Then I called my friend Matty, who I think we became as good of friends as we are due to mutual love of Blue Like Jazz, and hollered into his voicemail that I had gotten the manuscript!
I can't wait to call him. I can't wait to ask him how he does it. How he decides what goes in and what doesn't. I'm so excited to talk with a writer that I love and understand and see what ideas come out of the conversation. I received a lot of flack in college for my content and his content was a best seller. I can't wait. It's like a musician being able to pick the brain of Bono!
I still find myself saying, I can't believe that I found it. That I got there first. But I did and it's exciting and I wanted you to know.
Big week of marriages and engagements...CONGRATS TO ALL!!!!
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
My Hippos
These are my hippos. I've had the guy one for about a year. This week I came into work and found the girl hippo on my desk with the dude. I have no idea who gave me the girl hippo, but I'm glad they've found each other. I'm happy for their love.
I haven't written because I have been moving. Here is a shot of my new walls, in my super cool new home, that a team of friends helped me paint. BTW...I LOVE IT!
And lastly, a shot of my headboard that I made with the invaluable help of my friend Matty Turley that was brilliantly mounted on the wall by my Structual Engineer friend Brian Felker. They both were amazing and oh so vital to the success of this mission in their own rite.
Couple other things to look forward to. I got my next writing outlined last night. I had to pull over on the side of the road and get it all down. Thinking it's time to invest in one of those recorders that I can keep in the car; seems to be the place a lot of my writing topics are coming at.
I also got my next video blog. It's hilarious and I am going to introduce you to my sister friend Sydney. I love that girl! It's gonna be hilarious!
Stay tuned good stuff coming SOON!
Sunday, August 16, 2009
cabrio
My friend Darryl suggested after reading my blog, I should make a video section. He talked about how people want to know about the person behind the writing they are reading and with all the reality tv it's evidence that people watch it.
So per his suggestion and all my friends who are funny and do silly stuff we decided to go with it.
Here is the first intro video. It's rough and raw. No make up, no practice just here it is!
Stay tuned. Sillier events to occur.
So per his suggestion and all my friends who are funny and do silly stuff we decided to go with it.
Here is the first intro video. It's rough and raw. No make up, no practice just here it is!
Stay tuned. Sillier events to occur.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Process
If I was told that I had a brief time left on this planet what would I want to make sure I told the next generation to come behind me? We listen to stories and fables that are passed down from generation to generation. The statements that are quoted at weddings, in speeches, in research papers, and in the front covers of books that reflect an encompassing comment resonating deep within our human spirit.
I have always been an idealist, believing in the goodness of life. I am swept away at times with the wonder of this world, and a majority of my “formative” years were spent daydreaming about the type of adult I would be. I wanted to change the world. I had dreams I chased down every corridor of possibility and once exhausted another appeared.
A part of me has always believed there was something deeper within me. My freshman year of college I tired to explain to a friend my feelings of a lion living deep within my chest wanting only to be out. For a season I let myself get philosophical, allowing the naiveté of believing I had even the barest thread of a clue to what life was all about. Always believing that fire in my belly, the lion that longed to break free was just teenage angst. I do believe a large part of the feeling was spurred on by unsettled hormones and growing pains. However, that feeling, no matter how much I tried to calm it, is still alive and well inside. I think I’ve just learned to balance the burden of it and know that things are a process.
This process is what I would want to leave behind. A detailed map to leave that doesn’t necessarily provide direction, but more as a cheerleader to encourage during the processes of the process.
What I would want others to know is they aren’t in this alone. The thing about the process is, at times it can seemingly isolate you. The aloneness taunts you with long strokes of pity, offering you a modicum of pride with a lie. The lie? You deserve to feel this way as you are the only one.It is the greatest enemy to our dream and in the process we hit a really hard wall. It’s like life kicks you in the face and then, you keep it to yourself bathing in the misery of it. Before you know it you’re at a pity party for one and everyone else has gone home.
The problem with the isolation during the process is it’s doesn’t begin to complete the cycle until you let someone know what’s going on. At some point most people hit a point and start looking for something else. They determine that life is short and there should be something more to it. There is something that woos us in a grandiose style and creates a craving to see what could be. We stop wondering and start finding out.
And though these processes are meandering and at times repetitive they are building character and displaying grace.
Things change. Time makes dreams from childhood look different when you are actually living them. When I was a senior in high school I bought a gimmicky scrapbook that you fill in with memories and memorabilia to keep beyond high school. I actually did it and I worked on it all year, still have it 13 years later. There is a page in it that asked for an answer to the quintessential, Where do you see yourself in 10 years? question. So I diligently filled it in.
Education: a master’s in psychology and religion working on my PhD.
Career: pastoral counseling
Family: husband no kids soon but not yet
Home: Whatever God grants me to afford
Car: a better one NO Chevettes!!!
Other Important Goals: close with my family still. My brother close to me.
Mom still my help. (Gracious some of this makes me cringe to put it in here) to still be following God, to have been to Amsterdam to see Anne Frank’s house. Not to be ordinary.
Ten years later…
I was about to graduate from college with my undergrad, I was living with my parents, and working at my mother’s bead store. Not much like the picture I had all those years ago.
It is this contrast that brings me to what I would want to leave to the generations. More importantly, if and when I have a daughter this is what I would want to tell her:
I am a daydreamer. The more I tell women about my daydreaming habits they start to share theirs, old stories that lie deep with in them that were all but forgot. They creep out and remind them of the girl they once where. I know that my daughter is going to be a dreamer. I am like my grandmother, and I know that she will dream about life and plan at being older and in one breath I want to tell her not to daydream her life away, because the time when life leaves you carefree and without responsibility is very short. I don’t know why we always dream about when we are older, because honestly, the older I get the more I realize how much fun I had, and how fast life is going now.
But this is great too – the figuring it out part. Where you find yourself at a place where it’s time to start making the choices on your own. When you are facing monumental life changing directional choices that only you can make and no matter how much you want someone else to tell you what to do, it’s all up to you this time. It is there where you realize that it’s hard and each one has a consequence that could change tomorrow no matter what.
In high school I thought I knew what the dream looked like and you know, I honestly thought that was what I really wanted. And in part it really was. I still do not want to be ordinary. I still do not want to live an ordinary life. So I didn’t go that path? This is so much better.
So I would tell my daughter that I know she’s going to dream, but if you’re going to dream, dream BIG. Make the next dream bigger than the last. It’s the dreams that propel you through the seasons in your life. They are your rudder and they steer. Challenge yourself to live bigger, to dream bigger, to laugh bigger, because as you do that you see how amazing life is. How diverse we are and how much we mold the person next to us. Have your daydreams and make your plans, but always remember that dreams are simply the outline of your story. We connect the points and change the direction.
So baby, dream big! Because Life is so much better than I ever could have dreamed it to be. It's real and it’s raw, tragic and beautiful, and it unfolds and flows to the next adventure.
I have always been an idealist, believing in the goodness of life. I am swept away at times with the wonder of this world, and a majority of my “formative” years were spent daydreaming about the type of adult I would be. I wanted to change the world. I had dreams I chased down every corridor of possibility and once exhausted another appeared.
A part of me has always believed there was something deeper within me. My freshman year of college I tired to explain to a friend my feelings of a lion living deep within my chest wanting only to be out. For a season I let myself get philosophical, allowing the naiveté of believing I had even the barest thread of a clue to what life was all about. Always believing that fire in my belly, the lion that longed to break free was just teenage angst. I do believe a large part of the feeling was spurred on by unsettled hormones and growing pains. However, that feeling, no matter how much I tried to calm it, is still alive and well inside. I think I’ve just learned to balance the burden of it and know that things are a process.
This process is what I would want to leave behind. A detailed map to leave that doesn’t necessarily provide direction, but more as a cheerleader to encourage during the processes of the process.
What I would want others to know is they aren’t in this alone. The thing about the process is, at times it can seemingly isolate you. The aloneness taunts you with long strokes of pity, offering you a modicum of pride with a lie. The lie? You deserve to feel this way as you are the only one.It is the greatest enemy to our dream and in the process we hit a really hard wall. It’s like life kicks you in the face and then, you keep it to yourself bathing in the misery of it. Before you know it you’re at a pity party for one and everyone else has gone home.
The problem with the isolation during the process is it’s doesn’t begin to complete the cycle until you let someone know what’s going on. At some point most people hit a point and start looking for something else. They determine that life is short and there should be something more to it. There is something that woos us in a grandiose style and creates a craving to see what could be. We stop wondering and start finding out.
And though these processes are meandering and at times repetitive they are building character and displaying grace.
Things change. Time makes dreams from childhood look different when you are actually living them. When I was a senior in high school I bought a gimmicky scrapbook that you fill in with memories and memorabilia to keep beyond high school. I actually did it and I worked on it all year, still have it 13 years later. There is a page in it that asked for an answer to the quintessential, Where do you see yourself in 10 years? question. So I diligently filled it in.
Education: a master’s in psychology and religion working on my PhD.
Career: pastoral counseling
Family: husband no kids soon but not yet
Home: Whatever God grants me to afford
Car: a better one NO Chevettes!!!
Other Important Goals: close with my family still. My brother close to me.
Mom still my help. (Gracious some of this makes me cringe to put it in here) to still be following God, to have been to Amsterdam to see Anne Frank’s house. Not to be ordinary.
Ten years later…
I was about to graduate from college with my undergrad, I was living with my parents, and working at my mother’s bead store. Not much like the picture I had all those years ago.
It is this contrast that brings me to what I would want to leave to the generations. More importantly, if and when I have a daughter this is what I would want to tell her:
I am a daydreamer. The more I tell women about my daydreaming habits they start to share theirs, old stories that lie deep with in them that were all but forgot. They creep out and remind them of the girl they once where. I know that my daughter is going to be a dreamer. I am like my grandmother, and I know that she will dream about life and plan at being older and in one breath I want to tell her not to daydream her life away, because the time when life leaves you carefree and without responsibility is very short. I don’t know why we always dream about when we are older, because honestly, the older I get the more I realize how much fun I had, and how fast life is going now.
But this is great too – the figuring it out part. Where you find yourself at a place where it’s time to start making the choices on your own. When you are facing monumental life changing directional choices that only you can make and no matter how much you want someone else to tell you what to do, it’s all up to you this time. It is there where you realize that it’s hard and each one has a consequence that could change tomorrow no matter what.
In high school I thought I knew what the dream looked like and you know, I honestly thought that was what I really wanted. And in part it really was. I still do not want to be ordinary. I still do not want to live an ordinary life. So I didn’t go that path? This is so much better.
So I would tell my daughter that I know she’s going to dream, but if you’re going to dream, dream BIG. Make the next dream bigger than the last. It’s the dreams that propel you through the seasons in your life. They are your rudder and they steer. Challenge yourself to live bigger, to dream bigger, to laugh bigger, because as you do that you see how amazing life is. How diverse we are and how much we mold the person next to us. Have your daydreams and make your plans, but always remember that dreams are simply the outline of your story. We connect the points and change the direction.
So baby, dream big! Because Life is so much better than I ever could have dreamed it to be. It's real and it’s raw, tragic and beautiful, and it unfolds and flows to the next adventure.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
$9 People
It's 4:43 am. I woke up to worry and anxiety over the sad truth that I am only five days after getting paid and have $9 to my name until payday. The nagging worry of, “how will I do this for the next 10 days on $9?” found me striving in my prayer. To distract from the worry, attempting to convince myself of the submission to the worry I started praying about church, life, a job, and my new housing arrangements. As I was laying life at the feet of Jesus, it dawned on me and I had to laugh at myself.
I realized I'm more worried about my $9 than I am about the guy who sits next to me at work who doesn't believe in Jesus. It got me to thinking, what are you worrying about? How distracted are you by your circumstances? How crafty life is that it can get us distracted to obsess about things that aren't going to follow us. If I choose to chase the dollar instead of people how much will really follow me to Heaven?
The revelation of Jesus will show you more and more how much you love people. You can't love Jesus purely and not have a heart for people. I used to not feel this way. I would get annoyed when this truth was preached from the pulpit, but then as I got to know Jesus, really know him in a way I never knew he could be is when I realized I was all about people. When Jesus walked around he saw people, the lowest of the low, the ones that no one wanted to talk to.
Women who are trafficked in the sex slave trade is a large burden in my heart. Through a story about a political prisoner in Nicaragua two years ago, my heart came to the truth that I abhor injustice and was convicted to be a better fighter of it. The other night at a movie with a friend, which got out pretty late, we were walking to the car and an Asian woman with very poor English approached us by shoving a laminated card in our faces indicating she was raising money for something. I brushed her off and kept moving; it was after two in the morning! After I had gotten a good distance from her, I stood back and looked at the women in the parking lot that were trying to raise money. Then the statistics of trafficked people who are also trafficked for servant/labor work flooded in and I noticed a van with a man to the side waiting on the woman.
It was late and time to go home, my friend insisted that I get in the car and go, so I did, but I couldn't shake that woman. The next day the conviction of the evening was gnawing away at my heart and my stomach.
For all my declarations and pronouncements of loving people, seeing them, I failed the woman who approached me. Now, I couldn't even tell you what her face looked like. I didn't even look. I just shoved her past and kept moving. The next day I called the police and made them aware that I was concerned about trafficking, but was still torn up about the girl who approached me. In telling a friend about the conviction, she tried to comfort me by saying I probably did all that I could given the circumstances and she's probably right.
But the part that kills me – I could have seen her. If for only a moment to look at the woman's face and remember it. I could have seen her. If she is being victimized, who is praying for her? Who is fighting against the injustice she is being served? Who is believing for her release and her freedom? Did her parents sell her into this? Was she taken?
By not seeing her did I add to her victimization? Did I add to her misery? Am I a part of the problem?
I can say I love people all I want, but if I don't see them how am I really doing anything but making empty declarations that carry no real power or resolve? It changes nothing.
Everything fades when you start getting to the business of people. My $9 is more than that woman in the parking lot had. My house is comfortable, and I have a super cute convertible car that I LOVE! I am blessed and can't let my $9 dictate lack, but instead I choose to let it dictate abundance.
I have this note in my bible at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 that says, "Insert name for love," it's powerful when you do it... Ginny does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Ginny never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
I can never give up in my pursuit of loving people; Jesus didn’t give up in seeing me from the cross. I will never lose faith that God loves people more than I do and is making me a better see-er of people. My $9 motivates me to go back to work where I do have the opportunity to sit next to a guy who doesn't believe in Jesus.
Print that section of the scripture out, change all the Loves and pronouns to your name, post it at your desk, in your car, tattoo it on your arm if you have too, but see people. When we see people the way Jesus does, we are literally bringing Christ's love to the masses and the guy I sit next to will realize it one day.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
They Will Know Us by Our Fruit
I'm off today. I am standing in the post office waiting for a teller to assist me in my lost parcel pursuit. I've come to a post office I am not used to coming too. It's not the closest one to my house, but it's near where my mom works and I want to pop over to see about getting something printed. I am in a line of about 9 people with two tellers working, thinking to myself that I am going to be here an hour and I'd like to Twitter gnay: I hate government agencies. In my head I am thinking DMV, USPS, Financial Aide offices, etc. I decide that with out that info a Twitter of I hate government agencies may be too radical for this day and age and one day I may have to account for that statement, so I'll go against the urge to Twitter.
I look behind the counter and there is a man standing in the second help carol on the right at the room length counter. He is smiling. His eyes are crinkled at the edges and his hair is slightly greyed, he's wearing glasses. but he's sparkling. His entire countenance is radiating around him. His face is awesome. His smile is so genuine and I hear "They shall know us by our fruit..."
I really do dislike going to cattle herded rope-lined agencies and having to wait in line. The Post Office by my house is always so stressful. It's stressful in line and it feels long. Here I have moved to the front of the line in less than five minutes and people keep coming. When I think about the attitudes of the agents at the post office by my house they are very edgy and polite, yet curt. They move the line but not like this one. This post office feels peaceful. The patrons in line are more relaxed and more calm. It's here I notice that this man is affecting the atmosphere around him. I am next in line and I hope he waits on me because I bet he is a Christian.
There are two people at the counter in front of me and they are finishing up with in seconds of each other. I hope that he finishes first....
"Next!" He says.
I request his help on my missing package, he is going to go do some research. I stop him quickly and explain that I am a writer.
"I noticed something about you. Are you a," how do I ask this? "believer, sir?" I finish in a hushed tone for privacy from the man standing to my left filling out a card.
"All day long ma'am." His head is dipped low and to the side against a shoulder, timidly glancing at me from the left.
"I knew it. I am writing my next piece about you. Thank you." I think I've scared him. He nods at me and excuses himself to go find my package.
I immediately pull a piece of paper out of the pad I have been scribbling this event on in line and draft a quick note:
You've inspired a Christian writer who was spending all day thinking about what my next piece was going to be. It's going to be called: They Will Know Us by Our Fruit. http://www.ginpaynter.blogspot.com/ love it if you check it out. Thank you. You've blessed many more today that you know.
There, that will do. I hope it doesn't scare him when he comes back...if he ever comes back. There are another 9 people in line behind me waiting again. He brings blessing to this place.
He returns with my answer about my package, which appears to still be an anomaly, and I slide him the note. He's reading it.
"Thank you, I will check it out. Thank you it means a lot."
"No, no. Thank you."
I move about my business and I walk away knowing that I have just seen the gospel preached with out a single word. It has me thinking, I wonder if people feel differently when they leave being with me? Do I change the atmosphere when I am somewhere? And if I do, what am I changing it to? I knew him by his fruit. He didn't use a word, he didn't tell me a story, he simply stood behind a counter and smiled. He was sowing joy, he was bringing peace.
By what fruit are you known? Are you sowing joy? Are you bringing peace? What story are you telling and how are you telling it?
I am challenged by Bill the postman. How much more must I let the grace of God reign over my life. I don't need to stress and struggle. I don't have to stress out about what I am going to write about. God's grace is sufficient. It validates. It is the substance that allows me to fall more in love with Jesus, and to see people more. The revelation of His grace is powerful enough to change a post office.
I pray that Bill does read this. I pray that he is encouraged. Kevin Brett preached last night that when you encourage someone you are actually placing courage with in them. I hope it does deposit courage within him. I pray that it builds him up and spurs him to come with even more purpose in the post office. We are all part of the body and it has many different parts. There is power in the everyday. What is your everyday looking like?
Power in the everyday...that's a whole different writing.
I look behind the counter and there is a man standing in the second help carol on the right at the room length counter. He is smiling. His eyes are crinkled at the edges and his hair is slightly greyed, he's wearing glasses. but he's sparkling. His entire countenance is radiating around him. His face is awesome. His smile is so genuine and I hear "They shall know us by our fruit..."
I really do dislike going to cattle herded rope-lined agencies and having to wait in line. The Post Office by my house is always so stressful. It's stressful in line and it feels long. Here I have moved to the front of the line in less than five minutes and people keep coming. When I think about the attitudes of the agents at the post office by my house they are very edgy and polite, yet curt. They move the line but not like this one. This post office feels peaceful. The patrons in line are more relaxed and more calm. It's here I notice that this man is affecting the atmosphere around him. I am next in line and I hope he waits on me because I bet he is a Christian.
There are two people at the counter in front of me and they are finishing up with in seconds of each other. I hope that he finishes first....
"Next!" He says.
I request his help on my missing package, he is going to go do some research. I stop him quickly and explain that I am a writer.
"I noticed something about you. Are you a," how do I ask this? "believer, sir?" I finish in a hushed tone for privacy from the man standing to my left filling out a card.
"All day long ma'am." His head is dipped low and to the side against a shoulder, timidly glancing at me from the left.
"I knew it. I am writing my next piece about you. Thank you." I think I've scared him. He nods at me and excuses himself to go find my package.
I immediately pull a piece of paper out of the pad I have been scribbling this event on in line and draft a quick note:
You've inspired a Christian writer who was spending all day thinking about what my next piece was going to be. It's going to be called: They Will Know Us by Our Fruit. http://www.ginpaynter.blogspot.com/ love it if you check it out. Thank you. You've blessed many more today that you know.
There, that will do. I hope it doesn't scare him when he comes back...if he ever comes back. There are another 9 people in line behind me waiting again. He brings blessing to this place.
He returns with my answer about my package, which appears to still be an anomaly, and I slide him the note. He's reading it.
"Thank you, I will check it out. Thank you it means a lot."
"No, no. Thank you."
I move about my business and I walk away knowing that I have just seen the gospel preached with out a single word. It has me thinking, I wonder if people feel differently when they leave being with me? Do I change the atmosphere when I am somewhere? And if I do, what am I changing it to? I knew him by his fruit. He didn't use a word, he didn't tell me a story, he simply stood behind a counter and smiled. He was sowing joy, he was bringing peace.
By what fruit are you known? Are you sowing joy? Are you bringing peace? What story are you telling and how are you telling it?
I am challenged by Bill the postman. How much more must I let the grace of God reign over my life. I don't need to stress and struggle. I don't have to stress out about what I am going to write about. God's grace is sufficient. It validates. It is the substance that allows me to fall more in love with Jesus, and to see people more. The revelation of His grace is powerful enough to change a post office.
I pray that Bill does read this. I pray that he is encouraged. Kevin Brett preached last night that when you encourage someone you are actually placing courage with in them. I hope it does deposit courage within him. I pray that it builds him up and spurs him to come with even more purpose in the post office. We are all part of the body and it has many different parts. There is power in the everyday. What is your everyday looking like?
Power in the everyday...that's a whole different writing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)