365 Days of Service

Day 158 - Nov 18

Our family has fantastic news - Ryan has been hired as a pastor on staff at LifeChurch.tv! We’re so excited to begin this journey and to see where God takes us. It was a long process for poor Ryan but he’s lit on fire now and I can’t wait to see him jump in and do big things through the people of LifeChurch.tv. Pray for his transition into his new position. I imagine he’s going to have some pretty interesting conversations and some difficult ones, too.

To celebrate his big news at LifeGroup tonight, I stopped and bought him a chocolate cake and a card for everyone to sign. He was really excited to share the story about his weekend and how excited he is to get started.

I love you Ryan and I am really proud of you!

Day 157 - Nov 17

Because of my leg injury I missed my evening serving at Mercy Ministry last week. I was bummed - I love serving there. Tonight I asked Ryan to join me since I wasn’t sure how much heavy lifting I could manage. He was awesome and we spent the evening bagging frozen pancakes and stocking shelves. I’m looking forward to serving alongside him next week on Tuesday - the only day open for Thanksgiving. It’s going to be crazy and a ton of fun!

Day 156 - Nov 16

I went to the Oklahoma City Campus of LifeChurch.tv today to play with kiddos. I’ve had a bad injury on my leg for weeks but a couple of the two year olds wanted to play and run around the room, so I played with them for a while. I got pretty hot running in circles but we had a ton of fun.

Day 155 - Nov 15

Ryan started a big weekend today with dinner with about 12 other people. Some are folks from out of town visiting LifeChurch.tv and others are on the leadership team at LifeChurch.tv. We started by attending the 5:00pm experience at the OKC campus and then took a quick tour of the building. Our group leaders were sharing a lot of information about how the campus was built and some of the inner workings of an experience. We followed this up with dinner at Ted’s Cafe Escondido. I met some of the other people with us and got to have some good conversation. It was a great dinner and a lot of fun. I was glad to be able to support and stand by Ryan while he goes through this process. I pray that everything will turn out well!

Day 154 - Nov 14

Tonight was the Big Show at LifeChurch.tv’s Oklahoma campuses. It’s a once-a-year event where we gather all the people who have served at LifeChurch.tv for an evening of celebration and inspiration from Craig. The evening started around 5:30 and I was assigned to care for babies in the youngest kids’ room at the OKC campus. Ryan came with me and signed up to help with whatever they needed. It was a crazy night; we had over 20 babies under the age of one in the room and at first only 3 volunteers! We had some recruits join us when at least half of the babies was crying. It was good to have help. It was a lot of fun, even if chaotic.

After I was able to leave the room to join Ryan, I found him manning the dunk booth. I noticed he was really wet and thought maybe he’d gotten wet from the booth, but when we spoke he told me he had first been assigned to the Sumo wrestling wring. I thought maybe he’d been one of the wrestlers, but he was only helping the wrestlers. Anyway, he got really sweaty and tired, so someone finally relieved him to go work the dunk booth.

As we left, we stopped by the petting “zoo” out front and pet some really cold pigeons, ducks and a baby pig. What a fun and crazy night.

Day 153 - Nov 13

Stopped on the way home from work to visit our foster kitten, Tormey, at Petsmart - but she wasn’t there. She’d been adopted - in only a few days’ time. Great news!

I then stopped and got a card and candy for Ryan - he has a big couple of days ahead of him and I wanted to show him some love and support.

Day 152 - Nov 12

I have no idea how to write about the day today. I’m not sure where to start. We met at our friends’ house this evening for LifeGroup. It was not our typical group meeting. Two of our families weren’t able to make it. There were four couples gathered for this meeting. It began with a discussion of the current series at LifeChurch.tv, Practical Atheist. It’s difficult to explain in words what is going on in our house these days, spiritually, let alone what is happening in our church, as well as in the big wide world. Ryan and I have both felt more and more recently that God is calling us to something bigger. He’s stretching us, challenging us, forcing us to ask questions we didn’t know we had, reaching out to others, building our own faith so that we’re able to go out and be reflections of Christ.

This particular series, Practical Atheist, has been a personal challenge for us both. Our senior pastor, Craig Groeschel, this week challenged everyone to evaluate whether or not we are “lukewarm” in our walks with Christ. He quoted Rev 3:14-16 in his message this week. While our group was discussing this scripture, or the idea of a God who would turn from us, the discussion grew into something more, something bigger. Before any of us had a grasp of the direction of the discussion, we were passionately discussing basic fundamentals of our faith.

When you get a group of believers gathered together, with no real agenda other than to challenge each other and to help one another grow in your faith, I think you’re going to see some interesting things happen. By the end of the evening, after many hours of discussion, we realized that our group may not be comprised of people all meeting for the same reasons, or even to the same ends. What this means for our LifeGroup, Ryan and I aren’t sure. But we feel strongly that with everything going on in our lives right now, we are most convicted by the challenge to be completely sold out to Christ - that nothing else matters or is more important than our relationship with Jesus.

What about you? What has challenged you lately? Are you completely sold-out for Christ or are you lukewarm?

Day 151 - Nov 11

I spent time on the Internet Campus today chatting with fellow attendees and praying with people going through a hard time. My challenge today was how to pray for people when I don’t completely understand their circumstances - or they ask for prayer about a situation that I can’t fully support. I give it up to God. That’s the best possible scenario I can think of. I’m not sure what else I could really do that would mean anything.

Today is Veteran’s Day, also. I never have been fully aware of the significance of this day like I was this year. Our good friend was sent to Irag for 3 months and it was a nerve-racking time for everyone who knows him and his family. Thankfully he returned home safe and sound and is now retired, a civilian. He’s working at his dream job and his family is doing amazingly well. I wrote them an email tonight expressing my appreciation for all they have sacrificed for our country and my personal freedoms.

Do you want to express your gratitude and send a letter of encouragement to a serviceman? Check out this very cool site: http://www.letssaythanks.com/Home1280.html. It only takes a minute to make a big difference in the life of someone overseas.

Day 150 - Nov 10

What a great day!! My niece, Audrey, was born to my brother, Ethan and his wife Julie, today! She’s beautiful and perfect and I can’t wait to meet her. You can read about her and see a picture here: http://www.whaleylife.com/blog/archives/273. I found something really cute and thought I’d honor Audrey’s arrival with a special gift. I put it in the mail today.

When I left work I went by Petsmart to visit our foster kitten, Tormey, whose there awaiting adoption. She looked great and was all cuddly and cute. I hope she finds a home soon!

Day 149 - Nov 9

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t have an opportunity to serve. I have had a terrible cold and had some surgery on my leg last week that is really painful. I’m feeling pretty pathetic. I did run out to grab a pizza for dinner and considering how badly I feel - I think that was pretty good effort. It kept Ryan from having to eat cereal or sandwiches, so I think he was thankful. I’ll make up for it with another big day of service in the near future.