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Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day

A few days ago our maintenance man came into the office and said that some very large rodent was running around in the ceiling. Apparently he was just sharing that info because there sure as heck wasn’t anything any of us women were going to do about it.

Today he came strolling in and said, “Adela and some guy are out in the hallway trying to catch a squirrel.”

I gave him a look that I hoped would communicate: You are the maintenance man and in any other world it would be your job to be chasing the squirrel, not spreading the news.

But I love Richard. So I got up and said, “Ooh. Let’s go watch.”

Well, I get out there and there is a squirrel running at me along the wall of the hallway, my co-worker chasing it, holding out her coat like she’s going to throw it on the little guy, and a dorky white man standing by the wall like he’s ready to pounce. They both scream at me, “Don’t let him get by you!”

Um, hello. Squirrels bite. I was NOT going to take on that rabbid fuzzy headed ball of cuteness with my bare hands. So, I let him get by me and watched him try to scale a wall before sliding back down.

“Please tell me you guys have a plan besides 4 hands and a coat.”

::blank stares::

So I walked over to the front desk and said to our other front desk girl, “Um, can I please have your recycling box?”

By this point the little guy was headed back down the same hallway the other way. He managed to get himself snuggled in behind a table that was leaned up against the wall. We all had different ideas for nabbing him and weren’t communicating them very well. I kept trying to explain to the other two that if they would calm down and let me get him under the box I would take care of it. But instead Miss Thang in her high heels and Mr. Crazy White Man kept bopping around sending the squirrel into a wall climbing frenzy.

Finally he crouched down in a corner and I said, “Everybody stop! You, Mr. Crazy White Man (I didn’t really call him that), open that door and hold it open.”

I went and calmly put the box down over the little squirrel and started dragging the box along the floor, dragging the squirrel with me under the box. Thankfully he was fairly compliant. By the time I got to the door, the other two had blocked it off fairly well so he wouldn’t go backwards. No problems now. Just lift up the box and he would go running out, down the stairs to the right and off into his happy place of freedom.

Well…sort of. Instead I lifted up the box and he took off running at turbo speed straight out in front of him and did a Superman leap off the balcony, landing on the ground 15 feet below.

I was horrified and the crazy white man assured me that the little sucker took off running as soon as his feet hit the ground. I chose to trust him.

These things don’t happen to normal people…

The Path of the Righteous: Part One

The week after Christmas I had the tremendous joy of getting to housesit for a precious family from my church. They kept telling me how much of a blessing it was to have me there but seriously my friends, I felt like a queen for that entire week. I had a whole household, a big fluffy bed with lots of fluffy pillows and a balcony off the bedroom all to myself. That balcony became my favorite place to sit and read in the evenings.

One of the other amazing parts though was that their house backs right up to the Barton Creek Greenbelt, an amazing 7 mile trail in Austin. Getting to walk out the back door every day with their dog Molly and hop onto the trail was such a luxury. Every day as I watched Molly run up ahead on the trail in front of us, I could never help but think the whole way. Just think. Think on

trails

paths

journeys

life

and

Jesus.

And in that short week, God revealed Himself in some amazing ways that I decided to share. So, for the next few days (uh...days...over an extended period of time I'm sure...) I will be writing a series called, "The Path of the Righteous."

Until next time...

P.S. Don't forget to switch over to www.jencorzine.wordpress.com. I'll probably stop posting on here next week! And for those of you who have been reading for years and years, I love you for staying with me through all the switches. I'll try to make this the last one!

Give the Man some room

In my chronological reading of the Bible I am just about to finish Judges. Before you become insanely impressed at how fast I am flying through it, you should know that I actually started this plan mid-last year. When I wrote that one of my goals for this year was to be into the New Testament by 2012, I had already started Joshua.

There, the jig is up. I have confessed. Moving on.

Like I was saying, I am just about to finish Judges and all I have to say from Judges is…whoa. Just whoa. The Israelites. I mean, COME ON. If you’re ever feeling like a failure, like you just can’t get it right, take a walk through Judges and you’ll feel a whole lot better about yourself. Just over again they were turning their backs on the Lord, refusing to trust in Him, in who He had proven Himself to be so many times in their lives. Oh wait…that sounds kind of familiar. Nevermind.

But He did something really cool with one of the guys that was willing to listen. God raised up this guy Gideon to be a judge, despite the fact that Gideon had an extremely hesitant and sometimes weak faith. God asked Gideon to lead a group of men to deliver the Israelites from the Midianites saying, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.”

Gideon struggled and begged God for signs that He would be true to His word, signs that He graciously provided. On the morning when Midian was to be defeated, Gideon rose and took his army with him, about 32,000 men.

But the Lord said to Gideon, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’” And with that God helped Gideon strip his army down to 300 men.

Did they defeat the Midianites with a meager 300 men? Of course they did. How did they do it? By going to the outskirts of the Midian camps and blowing trumpets and smashing pitchers, causing such a commotion that it confused the Midianites and basically set their men against each other until they had defeated themselves. It’s actually a pretty funny situation…well, in my head. I have a feeling that the Midianites weren’t by any means laughing.

But I keep going back to what’s before that. “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful.”

When I first read that, I read it once. And then I read it again. And again. God was first of all setting up His promise. He would deliver Midian into the hands of the Israelites. That was not in question.

But He was not willing to do it in such a way that the Israelites could claim that they, in their own strength, had won this battle.

I couldn’t help but think about the fact that so many hours of our days revolve around accomplishment that comes from our own strength. We are completely trained to live in such a way that gives God no room to work. We overstaff just in case someone calls in sick. We overbuy just in case more people show up. We overwork just in case we get sick tomorrow. We have plan A’s and B’s just in case something doesn’t go as expected. We leave early just in case there’s traffic. We plan, prepare and compensate.

And after all of this, I would venture to say that the vast majority of us feel overwhelmed and tired and anxious because we still don’t feel prepared or like we’ve done enough.

We run ourselves ragged at the expense of not only our physical, emotional and spiritual health, but most importantly at the expense of the glory of our Lord and Creator. We have left no room for Him because we are seeking glory only for ourselves.

God knows His plans. And His plans will be accomplished. But don’t wear yourself out trying to accomplish what He has already promised will happen. Leave opportunities in your life for people to say, “I don’t know how that happened.”

Glory (His, not yours) is found when you say, “Because of God alone.”

I work part time for my church doing children’s ministry every Sunday morning. And nearly every morning we have volunteers who have sick kids or unexpected travel or simply forget they’re scheduled to serve. It happens almost every Sunday. But I have been tremendously blessed to work with someone who does not over plan but simply says, “God will take care of it.”

And every Sunday He does. He either brings less kids or more people.

A couple of Sundays ago we were really in a pinch, right up until the last second. We were short about 4 people. All the volunteers gathered to pray, as we do every Sunday, at 9:30. We prayed aloud together for the usual things adults pray for…that God would show up, that He would speak to the kids, that He would use us for His glory, that all the children would feel loved…

And then Zachary, a 6th grader who had come in that morning wanting to serve, piped into the prayer.

“God, uh, we need help. You know we do. We don’t have enough people. And, uh, You knew this was going to happen. So God please help us. Please send people.”

And God did send people. As people filtered in that morning for church a few of them stopped by and said, “Hey, any chance you guys need help back there today?”

Because of the precious and courageous prayer of an 11 year old boy, and because we had saved room in our hallways for God’s presence, He showed up. And we walked away that Sunday knowing that children’s ministry happened because of God and God alone. Because He wanted it to happen. And He promised it would be okay. And He made good on His promise.

He. will. not. fail.

So give the Man some room.

Listening...

Don't forget to switch over to http://www.jencorzine.wordpress.com/!

I have an announcement...

I moved my blog! Well, kind of. I switched over to a wordpress blog for various reasons that will bore you to tears should I go through them all. Point of this is, switch your readers or your subscriptions or your favorites or whatever and head over to:

www.jencorzine.wordpress.com
I'll keep posting here for a week or so until everyone gets situated. :) Love you all!

Homeboy

This morning Mr. Dumbbutt was running around outside in the 30 degree weather. Obviously, he was more than willing when I offered to let him inside. Then I went one step further and offered him some of my roasted chicken. Let me state for the record that I’m not sure at this moment any living creature (Jesus not included) loves me more than Tyler Kitty. A warm apartment, a snuggly mousey and a few bites of roasted chicken are the ticket to make a happy cat.

And for those of you who are wondering, his real mama is beginning to question whether or not she Kity Kitty might actually be a he Tyler. I’ll spare you anything graphic, but there is some physical evidence that I pointed out to her and she said something along the lines of, “Ohhhhh…yeah. That might be what those are.”