Excitement

I often wonder how others perceive me. Do they see Christ in me? When they think of me, can they tell I love Jesus and have given my life to Him? It has come to my attention that I am noticeably more excitable than the average person and I now find myself wishing excitement was one of the Fruits of the Spirit...you know...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, excitement, goodness, faithfulness...right? I wish that me, being excitable, somehow reflected Christ.


Tomorrow is Grandma Horning's 80th birthday party. She is SO excited. She knows it's coming, doesn't know all the details but sure tries her hardest to find out. She talks about it all the time, tells my uncles what other parties have been like that she's been to, asks questions and tries to guess details, offers to make pizelles (no Grandma, you cannot make cookies for your own party), etc. Seriously excited.


I was telling Carol at work this morning about Grandma's party and how excited she was for it, and her reply was "you must get your excitement from your grandma. Last week when you were talking about your turkey sandwich with avocado, I didn't know a sandwich could be so exciting."


I chuckled and said "I guess I do get excited pretty easily" to which she replied "yes, you do!" and proceeded to give more examples of my over-excitement! She was laughing throughout and wasn't being critical, but it was certainly clear that my level of excitement is not normal. borderline weird.


I had no idea it was making such an impact. Doesn't everyone love avocado and turkey sandwiches? It all started with this Italian sandwich bread I found at Aldi. I'm sure it's all processed and artificial without a single ounce of healthy grains in it, but I didn't care - it was cheap and soft (soft bread is the best. I hate crusty bread). Unfortunately now I'm addicted - it's seriously the best bread ever. Italian bread with a little dijon mustard, some turkey and sliced avocado. You should try it. It's amazing. I love avocados. I could eat them every day. They were on sale at Aldi two weeks ago so I bought 4 of them and had a week and a half of avocado bliss. Happiness is turkey and avocado sandwiches.


I'm pretty sure this was how I explained my sandwich to Carol last week - maybe a few less details - and as I'm reading my paragraph...yes...my excitement does appear to be a bit over the top. Probably not a normal response to a sandwich.


What weird things make you really excited? Am I the only person so easily excitable?


(*Note* There are fair vendors downtown today for 'Celebrate Lancaster' and I LOVE fair food. This is where I'll be spending my lunch for the next hour. I'll spare you the details of my excitement...you can just imagine how I'm feeling...turkey and avocado sandwich x10. I'll be back with a full belly to finish posting.)


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I also have some not-so-trivial excitement. Dave has a new job! (Dave is done at UPS now - getting hired at UPS was also an answer to prayer, but turned out not to be as awesome as we thought it was going to be. Now he will be working for JK Mechanical installing solar panels.) This is the kind of "wow I can't believe God provided this wow wow wow thank you Lord!" kind of job. Could this be why he had to leave DaVita? Because He knew we wouldn't be looking for this otherwise? Wow. Provision better than I ever could have imagined. We don't deserve this blessing. That kind of "wow". And I found myself beginning to fear. For us, our "stretching steps of faith" have always been money related - trusting Him to provide when we need it through various job changes and such. Now that He has provided so far beyond my expectations, I found myself fearful of what our next trial will be. What will go wrong, now that it isn't some money/job issue? Will we have to deal with health issues? People issues? What's going to go wrong now that this is going so right? That was Tuesday - the same day we confirmed he got the job - by the end of the night I was fearful. Wednesday morning, I read this blog and the Lord just stopped me in my tracks. Of course there will always be trials, but how foolish of me not to just enjoy His goodness and respond with praise and generosity. God is good. Through trial and blessing. He is good. God enjoys blessing His children. So, Thank You Lord! Thanks for providing beyond what I could have imagined. Give us wisdom as we use it in ways that honor you - paying off debt, saving, giving, and fixing up our house. Thank you. Thank you. Amen.


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In May, David and I went to Phoenix for a long weekend to visit with his family and attend his brother Dan's graduation from Phoenix Seminary. It was a super fun trip - we love spending time with them (and I got to eat Mojo FroYo twice in one week, which was a secondary highlight). (FroYo = frozen yogurt. I've never used this slang term before, but I've heard others say it and thought I'd feel cool if I tried it out. If I will continue to refer to frozen yogurt as FroYo is still to be determined. Regardless, I love eating it.)

Hm.

I do get really excited about more than just food. Promise.


The graduation ceremony was very nice, and seminary grad is fun because there are a lot less people and it seems more meaningful. Here is David with Dan, the graduate:






















Dan is awesome and smart so they asked him to speak at his graduation. It was great. The other highlight was some time for praise and worship during the ceremony. Loved that! Congrats, Dan!

The Sunday we were there we were able to attend Dan and Anna's church. He has been pastoring there for some time now (my vague reference because I don't really know how long...more than one year but less than five.) Dave enjoyed getting to hear him preach to a congregation (which is more than how older brothers 'preach' to younger brothers :) ) Really though, his message was so encouraging and challenging and it's exciting to see how God is using them in Mayer, AZ.


Dan and Anna live in Phoenix, serve at their church in Mayer (about 45 minutes north), and the town of Prescott is just another 45-60 minutes north of Mayer so we headed up there after church. The town center has a big park. When we first arrived, there was a lady hula-hooping, a man juggling bowling pins and another lady swinging what looked like tennis balls at the end of long stockings. We thought this odd, and continued to walk around the various shops. As we were heading back to our car we passed the park again, which was now full of people doing all sorts of random art forms (if you can call it that).There were more people with tennis ball stockings - these were swung in the air in circles or crossing in front of the body - I kept waiting for a cool trick, but there wasn't one. There was the lady with a long stick who laid on the ground in various yoga-like poses and balanced the stick on her body. And our favorite - the sword lady (pictured below). She moved around with tai chi-like movements, swinging the sword and poking it in the air...we just stood and watched. I didn't know what to make of it. There was no music. Just individual dancing. Sort-of. More accurately - individual moving.


I couldn't get close enough to get a very clear shot with the camera on my phone, but at least you get an idea. I don't really know how to end this story - there isn't much of a point outside of me thinking it was odd and having pictures to commemorate the occasion that I wanted to share with you for your personal enjoyment. If you have some insight to the thought or purpose behind this, please enlighten me. I just can't get beyond my own questions: How did this get started? Who organizes something like this? Do they do it every Sunday? Do you bring your own 'art medium' or do you share? Are you all friends? Have you ever spoken to each other or do you just come and have some alone time with the group? ...? ...?































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