They sell this awesome pear flavored drink. We needed to keep our
strength up since it took us 3 hours to work our way through.
We went to the hospital today and attended a new parent class all day. Learned a lot. Got some questions answered. Spent a lot of time giving Becca back rubs. I didn’t realize that was such a big part of the process before. But, I suppose she should get something nice out of this whole childbirth thing.
We picked up this nice but ugly dresser from the ARC and now I can
reveal the finished repainted masterpiece!
I love going for walks in the country. We have all these bright yellow flowers lately. And last night I finally got a really amazing picture of the flowers glowing in the last few moments of sunlight. (Gasp! That’s right this wasn’t taken at dawn, but at dusk!)
Colorado rolls out new logo and slogan for state brand campaign - The Denver Post.
This is pretty good. I like the feel of it. Which is good, since we’re going to start seeing it everywhere. The green color looks a little too light to me for some reason, and one of the treatments with the text way off to the right looks like it has some crazy-wide leading.
My favorite part is the explanation of why the state flag wasn’t good enough for a recognizable basis of a logo.
But in a nationwide survey where people were shown the flag with no other identifying information, more respondents said it represented Chicago than those who correctly identified it as the Colorado flag.
A related survey question showing the standard green-and-white Colorado license plate — even when it was viewed without the word “Colorado” — had high recognition among the national respondents.
To be fair, most state flags are terrible for branding. I eventually like Colorado’s bizarre Pac-Man flag better than the Nebraska and Iowa state flags.
We had 3.8 inches of rain last night. That’s insane for Colorado.
Yesterday, in general was a day of ups and downs, lights and darks. In the morning Rebecca and I went to minister at Courtside Ministries here in Colorado Springs. It’s a brilliantly simple ministry. Volunteers stand outside the county courthouse, on the sidewalk, and greet people that are walking into the building, then we offer to pray with them. It’s incredible. They have a little cart with literature and some hand-made toy cars for little kids. It was so cool to be face to face with strangers and then get to pray with some of them. Even the rejections didn’t phase me that much. The people who accepted prayer were incredible. I had a man and woman stop and ask for prayer, one of them was going into court to be sentence to prison that morning… wow. The holy spirit provided the words for that prayer because I was definitely at a loss.
After a few hours there and praying with a dozen people, I went back to work and continued my already very rewarding day job. Sadly, though, at work I heard the heart wrenching news that a co-worker had lost their daughter in the flash flooding the day before. That news shocked and saddened me. The tragedy drew a deep contrast to the joy I had experienced in the morning.
After work, Becca and I were substitute teachers at Celebration Station, the children’s program at our weekly Celebrate Recovery meetings. We haven’t lead that group for about a year. We knew a few of the kids in the group, but we weren’t really ready for the madness of having 24 kids all in one room. Last year we never had more than 10. That children’s ministry time was a new high-point. The adrenaline of trying to direct the attention of all those children. The heart tugging emotion of disciplining and talking to the kids who weren’t fully engaged or were acting out. And then, the privilege of seeing some kids open up to us and share their hearts. Children’s ministry is hard, it’s exhausting and it’s also soooo rewarding.
Unfortunately throughout the day Becca had been experiencing strong muscle spasms in her stomach, and we were concerned they were pre-term contractions. So we had to rush to the ER at night after we wrapped up at church. Everything seems to be fine, but it was frighteningly real right after the joy of service. We’ve had a fair bit of experience with waiting in a hospital room. And, it brings up a lot of emotions to be waiting in one again. All of a sudden I felt an overwhelming need for prayer. The doctor came in and reassured us that everything was fine, there weren’t contractions. As that new soaked in, I started to get excited about the reality of receiving the amazing gift of my first child in a few short months. Another little spike of happiness.
My life is so different now, and it’s changing on a daily basis. I have only started to understand just how much my life will be changing with the upcoming birth of my son. I’ve been living in a state of transition for the last two months since our lives were turned upside down by the fire. It’s a time of panic, sadness, frustration and hard choices. But, also we get to see the reward of God’s provision, and we feel the love of our brothers and sisters. So many emotions get packed into short periods of time now. I am reminded again that this life is not in my hands, I am definitely not in the drivers seat. And I will eventually learn to be OK with that.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
Proverbs 3:5
Becca and I spent the day today at the Global Leadership Summit in the satellite campus here in Colorado Springs. Every year, many Compassion employees go to the summit, and Becca was able to get a really good discount ticket as well. So we are soaking up some amazing teaching from Bill Hybels, Patrick Leoncini, Liz Wiseman, Bob Goff, Chris Brown, and more. Tomorrow we return for the second day.
I see a lot of great things for improving my ministry service at Celebrate Recovery in our church, as well as at my regular job at Compassion. It’s a blessing to be filled up and fed by great leaders and experts. These conferences are pretty common nowadays. But, I do enjoy the rapid and intense pace of information download. And, oddly enough I enjoy taking notes, something I rarely enjoyed in school.
One of the hardest sessions was asking the audience to consider if they are a multiplier or a diminished and to think about the leaders you’ve served under in the past. It was challenging to go back to consider difficult experiences with some managers and teachers. And to think about my own default attitudes that could lead me to diminish others unintentionally. I have noticed the power and value that I feel when other people believe in me and trust me. Trust is a powerful tool. As is the tactic of asking questions rather than giving orders.
In Vancouver, BC we rented a tandem bike and rode a ways along the waterfront. It was fun and gorgeous there, but we feared crashing and injuring ourselves on that death-trap. It was a fun adventure, though.
