Belated Thoughts

The week of Easter I travelled with family to Jefferson City to watch my brother and sister-in-law in their churches Passion play. This church means a lot to Matt and I, they supported us faithfully while we lived in Vienna, it was our church home before moving to Wentzville, the pastor, one of the most compassionate men we have ever met, never left our side through losing our babies. When we knew things were going bad Tuesday night, we called our family. Ken came first thing Wednesday morning and stayed with us the entire day, through everything. Not only was he there for Matt and I in a huge way, but he was there for our family as well. He prayed with us, cried with us, and was a silent strength to all.

Anyways, I was really excited to see Ken and his wife, and to visit our second church home. This particular Passion play was written by a guy in their church, and it was written from a completely different perspective than most, and I loved it. The play looked at life from the peoples perspective, particularly the theives. It gave several glimpes into the life and ministry of Christ, which I really liked, because it gives so much more meaning to both the ministry of Christ, and his death and resurrection.

I completely lost it when it showed Jesus' ministry with the children. Seeing children sit at the feet of Christ, listening to him teach, broke my heart. Thats where my babies are, sitting at the feet of Christ, basking in his perfect love. This moment both broke my heart with the reminder of our loss, but touched my heart in the sweetness of where my precious babies are.

Shane and Shane

Matt and I first met at Metro, a weekly college night--worship and a message-- put on at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas. Matt Chandler was the speaker and worship was often led by Shane and Shane. The worship was amazing, and Matt preached the Word, holding nothing back, which always encouraged, but also challenged in the most amazing ways.

Since then, we have been fans of Shane and Shane. Here's why:

-They have the most amazing voices

-We love their acoustic style

-The lyrics to the songs they write are powerful, and real

-We love their hearts for God, they don't put on "concerts" they lead in worship, and are always accompanied by a speaker and a mission

So when we heard they were going to be in Columbia, we knew we had to go to their "concert!" We were truly blessed. The theme for the night was "Turn Down the Music." The speaker, David Nass, explained how they came to this title for their tour by telling the following story, in my words as I remember it of course.

There was a small town in Germany with a train stop across from their local church. It was a popular stop for the passengers to get off, stretch their legs, eat and use the necessary. It even stopped on Sunday mornings while church was in session. Until World War II started. Then the carts on the train were crammed full of Jewish men, women and children. When the train stopped in their little town, the people would cry out for help, a drink, for food, or for someone to save their child. The train continued to stop on Sunday mornings, the noise created from the Jewish prisoners was loud and interrupted the church service. They decided to change the order of their service, moving their worship time to the same time the train was scheduled to stop across the street. Although it worked at first, the prisoners eventually became louder than the people's worship. They only began to sing louder, and louder, and louder, trying to block out the Jewish prisoners cry for help.

David's point being, as Christians, we often times turn up the noise in our "worship" in order to drown out the cries for help in the world. We become so involved in our little Christian world, in our worship and activities at church, in our lives, that we tune out those who need us most. Our world shrinks, and the problems of the world are blocked out, even as we claim to be at a high place in our spiritual lives. Our worship has slowly become about us, singing on Sunday mornings, reading the Bible during the week, but it no longer includes helping those who need it most. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, sould, mind and strength. We have that one down to perfection. Yet what about the second commandment? Love your neighbor as yourself. We no longer hear or care or do anything about the averaged number of 35,000 people who die everyday due to starvation. We don't reach out to the elderly and the orphans. We do not help the poor. These are all parts of our spiritual act or worship. Worship through music is a beautiful thing, but worship is so much more.

If you are not familiar with Shane and Shane, I encourage you to visit their website at http://www.shaneandshane.com/. Their songs will bless your heart. As you have read this post, if your volume is turned up, you have been listening to the many talents of Shane and Shane, if you haven't heard anything, turn up the volume!!

Latest Addition to our Family

A little over a week ago I went into PetSmart to buy some cat food and some litter and I happened to walk by the aisle where they have the pet adoption center. As I passed by the first time I noticed a cute kitten playing in her little pen. So after I had picked up my two items, I ignored the voice in my head that said "Stay Away!" and went to look at this kitten. It was a little 7 month girl who played with me the entire time I stood there. I put my hand on the glass and she was rubbing up against the glass trying get herself some loving through the glass, and would swat at my hand and chase it. She was so cute! I called Matt....told him about this adorable kitten, then went to pick him up from work to bring him back to PetSmart.

We had been contemplating getting a new cat for the past few months and have been going back and forth about it. We have done a lot of research and found out that cats are very social animals. Apparently single cats can get lonely as they age and become mean due to their loneliness. But we couldn't decide, until I met Pip. She was so cute and playful, and my heart fell in love! After holding her and playing with her for a bit, we filled out the paperwork and brought her home. It took us a week to think of a name, and we finally settled on Pip, short for Pipsqueak because her "meow" is definitely more of a squeak than anything else!

Gideon wasn't sure what to think at first, but it wasn't a bad reaction, so we knew we had hope! Over the past week and a half they have bonded and play well together. They especially love to chase each other in circles around the house! Gideon has definitely gotten more exercise with Pip around and he would now much rather cuddle with her than me. We are thrilled with how well they are getting along, and are glad we went ahead and got her, so they will have each other to play with when the baby comes and we no longer have as much time to spend with them.

Here are a few pictures of their week, Gideon is obviously the monster cat, and Pip is the cute white and grey stripped one.