July 26 – “Head history”

Yesterday was yardwork day once again at the Vaughan house.  At least it was for me.  Chris was tied up cleaning house for our life group Bible study.  Remembering my bout with the heat last time, I didn’t try to do too much this week.  I just mowed the front and back and trimmed some of the bushes that started growing like crazy after the rain we had last week.  It was still plenty hot, though. 

I got a call to let a group into the retreat center at Seaside.  They were a high school group from a church in Richmond.  They had been visiting with the Galveston Urban Ministries group that coordinates so much of the volunteer missions work here in Galveston.  I think they were doing some kind of planning retreat for a future mission trip.  They did love our facilities, though.  It’s hard not to if you have searched for other sites on the island. 

I finished up printing some programs seaside’s 17^th anniversary coming up this Sunday.  Actually the program is just the information for a State of the Church business report, but who can get excited about something like that?  So I dressed it up with some old scanned photos I had from the church’s history.  Even found one of me standing on my head.  That was how I introduced myself to Seaside in the first sermon I preached.  Stood on my head and asked them what they expected to happen when they came to church.  One guy yelled out, “Not that,” and I had their attention.  The rest, as they say, is history.  In the years following I started doing the head stand thing as an anniversary rite.  That lasted until my third neck surgery.  My neurosurgeon warned me that some things that are really fun would simply have to be let go.  And he was pretty specific about standing on my head being one of them.  I asked him.  He even fell for a really old joke at the time.  I asked if I would be able to play church softball after the surgery.  He assured me that I would.  I replied, “That’s great.  I never have before.”  As I recall he didn’t think it was all that funny.  Chris didn’t think it was funny, either.  She just shook her head and sighed.  She sure has kept me off my head, though.  Ah, well.  Maybe a little bit of pictorial history will make the handout a little more palatable.

Psalms 103:2-5 says, “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits —  who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.”

Father, thank you for helping Seaside put together the retreat center.  Keep on using it for your glory.  Amen.