How Great Is Our God

My three most recent cards have dealt with my own journey of faith in Christ. They are a glimpse of the key times in my life when I came to a deeper understanding of God. There is no way I could ever plumb the depths of our Great God, but I tried to capture a little bit of it. Unbeknownst to me, my daughter was capturing a glimpse of our Great God through my cards as well. My cards about MY journey, were helping her on HER journey.

Ellie is the type of kid who thinks outside the box from the moment she wakes up in the morning. She is the one that is most likely to embarass me, anger me, make me laugh so hard I cry, and make me really cry- all in the span of five minutes. She fancies herself an artist, and truth be told, she has a real knack for grasping some pretty nebulous ideas. My husband has dubbed her, The Philospher. Embracing life with creativity and flair is Ellie's cup of tea. Have I ever mentioned that she has a will like a Barcelona bull? ;)

Ellie, the artist, ambled into the computer room one day as I had my SPS cards spread out beside me. She has always been interested in my "card art project," as it is known around here, and she often interviews me about whatever card I happen to be working on at the moment. I was busily typing my explaination for I Was Without (www.soulpersuit.com/lw_e_without.htm), when she peeped over my shoulder. "Hi Mama. What are you doing? Is that Anna? And why is she on the moon?"

She picked up another one, http://www.soulpersuit.com/we7_trip.htm
And another, (http://www.soulpersuit.com/lw_e_shag.htm)

Through the course of enjoying and explaining 3-4 of my SPS cards with Ellie, I was able to engage her in a way that was tailor-made to her sensitivites (creativity, art, symbolism). And discussing my personal journey to God became a natural door to discussing her own journey to God. She's heard about Jesus in Sunday School, we talk on a daily basis about trusting Christ, she knows most of the"right" answers to all the important questions... but she hadn't made that leap of faith for herself. Ellie, and her will, were going to do it in her own time and in her own way. Before she was going to trust this Jesus-guy she still had questions she wanted answers to, concepts she hadn't nailed down, cogs and wheels in that little four year old brain that needed to be greased. I never imagined that Soul Per Suit would be that grease.

I was out of town last weekend at a wedding, and as Steve gave me "The Report" (ie: who ate their dinner, who scored a goal at soccer, what got spilled on the carpet- all the things that happened while I was gone), he tossed in... "Oh, and Ellie prayed to receive Christ last night."

I have no pithy ending for this blog entry. Just the words to the chorus we sang in church this morning,

How great is our God
Sing with me
How great is our God
And all will see how great
How great is our God

Life Happens (LH)

I’m sorry it’s been over a month since I’ve posted here. Encouragement and support are so important to the process of SPS. Without weekly meetings, seeing new information on the web site and frequent, “in touch” blog postings keep us connected and create our cyber community. For all my enthusiasm and intentions, I have not been able to do this, as often as I would like. I love doing the web site, the blog and SPS. I am a geek and artist and my essence yearns to spend my every waking moment getting all these great ideas out of my redheaded noggin onto the www.

(Now this is where I list all the LH events that have poked small little holes in the feeble wall holding my life together. Suddenly, you notice the water is above your knees and you’re asking yourself, “When did this happen?”)

I work a 40-hour a week job. Of course, this rarely means 40 hours. I spent a short time in Nashville when my mother was sick. She’s doing very well now, PG. My husband is in school and that puts a funny twist on things. I have relatives coming into town next week. And my own health issues are a constant. Of course, there’s always laundry, groceries, house cleaning, disabled cars, weddings, birthdays, funerals, hospital visits, church meetings, cooking, etc.

Despite all this, I’m determined to squeeze in a couple of good things like watching a movie with my husband, riding my bike, reading a magazine, praying, calling a friend, writing a note, or studying my bible. Doing this, though, resembles trying to shove one more pair of jeans into a washing machine that already has 20 pair in it. None of them get done well, I get stressed out trying to do it and everything has to be done all over again anyway.

My lament is the big “T”: TIME. Although I’m proud at how often I say “no”, even to little things, there’s never enough T. I remember when I was sitting in the airport waiting to catch my flight to Nashville. I had about an hour and I began to think of all the things I could get done in an hour if I were at home. But in an airport, it’s just T out the window.

I hadn’t heard from Sandi, our resident writer, in quite a while so I wrote to her the other night. I knew the signs and could predict the diagnosis: she was having a severe T deficiency. But I wanted her to know I was thinking about her and that she was missed. Her reply e-mail read like a lament so I asked her if I could copy it here:

I wonder how in the world I'm so swamped when I've signed up to do so little! I'm not writing a book. I'm teaching only one class. I'm not taking a class. I'm just reviewing Greek for my entrance exam. And I'm editing a quarterly magazine, which has been ridiculously complicated this time around.

I spent hours today online answering students' questions and entering grades. My husband was gone 4 days last week, so I was single parenting. On Thu my niece and her hubby fly in for 4 days. Some of my being swamped had to do with losing the motherboard on my computer and shopping, buying, waiting for, and installing everything for the new computer.

Anyway, I'm frustrated with what appears to be the complete inability to get ahead on anything. Part of it was that I had two interns signed up to help me this semester and then both ended up doing their own projects that took so much time they didn't have time to help me. So I was spending time supervising them and getting nothing in return--except two little certificates to a book store...

I know that Life is Happening for everyone. The good thing is that SPS is structured for when LH. Although meeting in person on a weekly or monthly basis might be more motivating, the web site is there all hours of the day and night. It’s never ahead of you or waiting for you to catch up. You can visit it when you’re in Nashville visiting your mother, when you’re over at a friend’s house, or when you’re at work. It meets you where you are. And it waits for you. I am committed to SPS and I will make sure that it is here for you on that day when you’re determined to squeeze in at least one thing for yourself.