The Chronicles of Melinda

Well completely spur of the moment we were like “well…we’re already here…let’s go see a movie”.  So we opted for the 7:00PM showing of Night at the Museum.  Loved it…maybe even more than the first.  I don’t now…I’ll have to watch the first.

I have to say I was pretty taken with the whole spontaneous thing.  Everything we do these days is pretty much scheduled and planned.  So it was completely random to just say…”hey let’s see this movie while we were here.”  Spontenaity adds a bit of spice to life…and I like it.

Well the Student Ministry is about to do something not so spontaneous.  It’s all planned out.  It will be announced this weekend…so don’t miss it.  11:00AM Sunday.

And we’re doing a pretty awesome song to wrap up the Dead and Gone series! Grab a friend and head on up!

Saturday I went back ot the good ol’ days and worked on call.  It wasn’t bad at all.  Did a couple of bites, rescued a family with 5 kids from a menacing bat, convinced citizens to leave the baby deer they found alone so it’s mama could find it when she came back (people interfere with nature all the time and kindnap baby deer…mamas leave them in a safe quiet place while they go graze and come back for them later…but humans tend to kidnap them when they stumble upon them assuming they are abandoned), investigated a couple of neglects and floated around Durham.  By the end of the day a citizen called back to say they saw the baby deer leaving with it’s mama and another deer (see…Animal Control does know a little som’n som’n) and I was off to the OC.  Now…3:30AM rolled around and I had to head back to Dur-Ham to pick up an injured dog.  So when I rolled in to NHC Sunday morning I was doing that …recovering from having good sleep interrupted in the middle of the night…thing.  But it was still all good.

Subject of the day ….HELL!  Do you know WHY Hell exists and why you should be concerned about it?  If not check out the sermon HERE! In Spiked the teenagers played Poker!  Hmmmmmmmmmm!  IN CHURCH!  And Youth Pastor Master Adam Cook was back in effect after recovering from his bout with the Swine Flu!  He won!  No more kissin’ pigs for a dollar, huh Adam?  Welcome back!

Sunday afternoon we headed to Cary for a shrimp broil my coworker invited us to.  You KNOW I was in Heaven…shrimp is my thing.  Not to mention he has an awesome game room upstairs in his house where we occupied ourselves with darts, an old fashioned wooden foozeball table(it’s coming back I tell you), some Wii Rockband and Mario Kart and big nice reclinging theater seats with a big screen TV (on which we watched Mall Cop=FUNNEEE).  Stuffed myself on shrimp, sausage, cheese dip, salsa, “special” ice tea and good company and then we were headed back to the OC.  Got home and all H-E-Double Hockey Stix had broken loose in the yard.  So instead of coming home and going straight to bed we had to fix fences and find missing horses (that were by the grace of God all on the property and nobody was hurt).  But I did FINALLY get to crash.

Monday morning I slept in for as long as possible with giggling children in the other room (my coworker’s daughter Taylor and our cousin, Raymond, stayed over with us).  But finally did motivate to get up, have breakfast (it helps when you can make someone …in this case Raymond…make you breakfast) and then let the kids ride horses for a little bit.  Then we loaded up and headed to Durham to make a few bucks giving horse rides at a birthday cook out.  Easy money! :)  Dropped off Taylor who’s dad graciously met us in Durham, stopped at the grocery store and then we headed home.  Taira and Raymond saddled up and went riding around the pond and back fields, I worked Clue and Malcolm cooked up some good burgers on teh grill.  Watched “Candyman” (which is everything BUT sweet if you’ve ever seen it) and then toted Rayond back to Rougemont.  As soon as I got home…it was night night for me!  Phew!  Busy but fulfilling weekend!

And now here I am at work….for the first time in forever wishing it was Monday again (cuz I was off!)

Queen Latifah and Li’l Rounds…can I get a What what?  Sorry Li’l…the Queen still rules!

Allison and Cindi Lauper….one of my FAVE Cindi Lauper songs so it was cool fo rme dawg!  (Even though Cindi seemed to have some weird little “moment” that was just….creepy).

Megan and Michael’s duet - it was just alright for me dawg.  But Steve Martin….that rocks! Who knew?  I kept looking like “is that Steve Martin???” and then they said “Ladies and gentleman….Steve Martin” (or did they say “Steve Martin ladies and gentleman”?  You get the point…it was Steve Martin!)

Danny and Lionel Richie….Lionel’s still got it and Danny IS going to be successful!  I like him!

Rod Stewart?  I didn’t realize he was still alive.  Okaaaay! I just wasn’t feelin’ it…but I do like Rod’s back in the day songs!

David Cook - I liked!  Sweet, sad song!

Santana - Flippin’ still rocks your face off!

The Black Eyed Peas - Even though the radio has REALLY overplayed Boom Boom Pow …I was still entertained.  And I like that Fergie has gone back to her “roots” and not left the guys high and dry after her solo career took off.

Silly moments….
I about fell off by bed when Kara pops out to outsang bikini girl AND bared a bikini at the end of the song.  And I commend her modesty because she was obviously very uncomfortable with baring almost all as she struggled to stay coverred at the end (but I wish I had her body so she has nothing to be modest about).  She knows she doesn’t need her body to get attention…and Kara can sang!  I have to admit that I originally thought Mariah Carey was going to be the one coming out mid song since they kept pulling out all these stars.  But that was fun to watch.

Tatiana….Puh-leeze! How annoying. 

Norman Gentle…how entertaining!

And so there IS going to be a season 9?  Mmmm….it’s starting to get old for me.

Well Adam has skillz…no doubt.  He’s been on top from the get go (and he’s got a long history of theater performances…including WICKED…so it’s no wonder he came on the show with stage presence).  Yeah he’ll sell…to a limitted market.  For example I probably would never buy his record cuz he’s not my type of listenin.  But Kris on the other hand even though he struggled with last night’s final song out of his range…has the appeal.  He’s cute (girls will vote for him), rumor has it he will get Danny’s votes (most likely) and he’s more markettable across the board if you ask me.  How will the vote go?  Who knows.  Sure it doesn’t matter because they will both be stars.  If Adam wins…I forsee Kris actually being more successful.  If Kris wins…it will be the upset of the century since everyone expects Adam to win.  (I’m usually going for the underdog though so I’m hoping it will be Kris).

Some key things are beginning to happen in my life.  Let’s just say…God is providing and sometimes he does it unexpectedly and that’s what I like about Him!  You never know what He’s up to!

On another note we gotta get the septic tank pumped.  Having to be conservative on the flushing til then.  Using the “if it’s yellow let it mellow if it’s brown flush it down” tactic. (I know….ewwwww…..TMI!   LOL!)  Fortunatley this is a matter the landlady is financially taking care of.

My ever faithful LG Scoop (that has gone through heck and high water…. literally… for nearly a year and remained functional finally) decided to bite the bullet.  Display issues caused me to go ahead and bring it in to Alltel.  But guess what? I got an upgrade as a replacement on the claim.  They don’t make Scoops anymore.  So I got the new Banter to replace it…and I like it.  I can check my e-mail from it.  It talks better than my Scoop, too.  Only disheartening thing was that they tried and tried and were unable to transfer the 189 contacts from the Scoop to the Banter so I LOST them all.  I figure…God was weeding out the names and numbers of people I don’t need to be in contact with.  So I’m rebuilding my contact list  through e-mails and texts and am currently at 116.  BUT…how about the first Banter was acting weird so I took it and they replaced it and AGAIN the contacts wouldn’t transfer. (So that means something really WAS wrong with the first one).  They gave me a new one and let me take the old one for a day so I could get the numbers out of it…but geesh talk about inconvenient.  I might have to do that back-up thing.  So if you haven’t heard from me lately you might want to text me your number or call me so I can save it (or this is your chance to dodge me).  All seems well with the new one though. For now I’m using the pretty blue faceplate that came with it (you get silver and blue) but am thinking of getting the purple one.  After all I always wanted a purple Scoop but they weren’t making it in purple when I got my orignal one. 

Well let’s see…as most of you know there is no more Saturday night service at NHC.  The good news is…block parties will be kicking off and there’s nothing like an NHC block party!

I deliverred the message to the Spiked teens for the first So Your Dead…Now What series kick off.  Laid out a bit about the lugubrious (only Spiked teens will get why I used that word) topic of Death.  Talked about knowing we are going to die..that the body and soul are separate so while we need to be concerned about what we do in our body here on earth we REALLY need to be concerned about what happens to our soul when our body is gone.  That led into talking about the Judgement seat of Christ and why it’s so important that we get our friend’s names in the Book of Life by workin’ on getting them saved.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it…And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-12, 15

But that also led into discussion of not taking for granted that we’ve put our name in the Book of  Life after getting saved and to make sure we turn our life over to living better and more Godly.

For once I actually felt pulled in the middle of the message to go somewhere I wasn’t originally intending on going and talking more about serving…and serving from the heart and not obligation because that work will be measured when we face our judgement day.

(A person’s) work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames. 1 Corinthians 3:13-15

I really tried to pound it home with the teens that even though we are always telling them they need to be serving…they need to make sure they are serving from the heart and not because we tell them they need to serve.  After all…if you are serving because you feel like you have to and you have no real vested heartfelt interest in how your serving is affecting those you serve….that’s the kind of work that’s going to burn up in the flames. 

So…where are you serving right now? Are you serving somewhere that you LIKE to serve?  Are you serving somewhere you ENJOY so that you are putting in the extra effort into serving at the top of the game?  Do you care how your serving affects those you are serving?  If not…time to pray on it a little and ask God to guide your serving to somewhere you will feel useful, purposeful and somewhere you will actually take pride in.  Make sure that you are serving in such a way that your work will withstand the flames when the time comes.

No matter where you serve or what you do…you have to have a genuine interest that your serving is helping bring others closer to Christ.  For example…something so simple as saying hello (Greeters/Hospitality) to someone as they walk into the church could determine if that person will come back to the church.  It could determine whether or not they decide to actually open their heart to listening to the message and possibly getting saved or sit there and feel unrecognized for being there.   Even cleaning up behind the scenes is important.  You aren’t just cleaning up (Cleaning Crew) - you are making sure that things look appealing and cared about so someone feels like we care about what they see when they walk into the church.  Something as simple as helping people get parked (Parking Team) could determine whether or not they will actually park and get out to come have a life changing experience.  I hope you appreciate our parking team for that reason.  I for one could say that if I were new and had to drive around the lot 5 times to find a parking spot I could very well decide I might as well just drive right back out of the lot and not bother. 

Serving Opportunities are endless.  From “simple” serving to spiritual ministering….it all matters to God so serve from your heart. 

Anyway…must have hit home because I had quite a few teens come up interested in serving after the message and I like that.  I had one teen come and give me a hug and say “I really felt God in your message”.  That’s what it’s all about! 

Went through the whole - read this…read that….show your ID….answer some very interesting questions and then it was time to get stuck.  Now I don’t have needle phobia.  I give my own horse shots, I vaccinate at work, needles don’t scare me.  But she whipped out the biggest needle I have ever seen-I mean even bigger than the ones I use on my horses.  It had to be as big around as a fast food drink straw! WOW!  The hole in it was humongous - I didn’t have to squint to see it!  Now I don’t know if that’s what they usually use or if she was trying extra hard to get my blood bag filled fast because all the nurses seemed to be stressing out about getting off at 5:00PM…but it was just HUGE.  I have a high pain threshold  (hey I poppped Taira out drugless after sleeping through most of my contractions and then just went to sleep when she was out)…but it did sting just a little going in. 

I played with the little knob thingy they give you to hold and work your hand while they suck the life out of you…and listened to my IPOD.  Then…before you know it I was done (I’m telling you - the needle she used was meant to get me out in record time!)  And I’m for real - because my appointment was for 4:45PM and I was told the whole process start to finish would take about an hour and I should expect to be in the chair getting the life sucked out of me for 7-10 minutes (I just don’t think it was that long! LOL!)  Well I was out of there by like 5:30PM one pint of blood less, one bandage I had to keep on for 5 hours (to keep from bleeding out of the hole in my arm from the gigantor needle) and one free t-shirt later. 

So I could possibly save up to three lives with my donation.  But let me ask you this…..how many lives got saved because Jesus chose to be a blood donor?  I haven’t done a thing!!! 

As for me…it was the first Mother’s Day for me with gifts I’ve had in….well EVER.  I mean Taira always makes me a card or drawing or something and my mom always sends me a card…but this year thanks to God’s Blessing of a great man in my life on top of the norm I also got TWO dozen roses, a very pretty MOM heart necklace, a new coffee maker and some dish towels from someone who is not even my “baby daddy.” 

I’ve often heard it said that you shouldn’t give a mom household gifts cuz you are telling them they need to do something around the house  (like make coffee or wash dishes LOL)…but I’ve been saying I need them and I have NO issues with getting something I want and need that is a household item.  Besides….I need my morning coffee! LOL!

Anyway, Mother’s Day after church we had a little cookout at the house.  One of Taira’s friends had spent the night Saturday so I invited her mom to come cook out with us.  Also invited one of the most beautiful moms I know to come cook out with her kids who have been wanting to come ride the horses.  It was nice.  Malcolm manned the grill and well…when all the meat is gone you know the food was good! LOL!  We, of course, had a fire when nightfall came.   It was a fun day…don’t know if it was true “relaxing” because I always feel busy when I’m entertaining company…but I had a good time and when the last of guests had gone I was dead to the world.

But now that I’ve got the blinders off I know that it doesn’t matter what water you get baptized in because…you are far more dirtier than the water itself when you go in.  But no matter how dirty the water may be and how dirty you are going in…you will be so clean when you are raised back out…baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!!!!

When the bible mentions people getting baptized, they were not being baptized in fresh well and tap water.  They were being baptized in muddy rivers….and coming out cleaner than they had ever been in their entire lives.  Because they were washed new in Christ as we all are when we make the life changing decision to take the plunge!

Someone close to me recently told me they have been thinking long and hard and feel ready to be baptized.  Man…do you know how it feels when someone tells you that?  It’s amazing.  It’s a feeling you don’t understand until you embrace being a christian and have a desire to see others give their lives over to God and get baptized into a new life.

Baptism at NHC is coming soon…and I’m excited.  It’s going to be amazing.  So…where are you at?  Are you, as Pastor Dave says, stopped at the door?  Is baptism the only thing you haven’t committed to yet?  Well what are you waiting for?

Acts 22:16 And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.’

Why get baptized?  Well let’s see….

Ephesians 4: 4-6 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 

John 3:5 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

Want to find out more about Baptism at NHC?  Stop at Next Steps this Sunday….

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