August 16 – “Why not a goldfish?”

The last bit of my computer work got done for this week, other than the daily blogs, of course.  For some reason my hardest thing was the children’s sermon.  I needed something to go along with Jesus teaching about resurrection in John 5.  My first idea was pretty much nixed by a look from Chris.  Why not use a goldfish?  I could bring in a goldfish and see how long he would last out of the water before we threw him back in and he came back to life.  Too much drama for young hearts, I guess.  Well, that and my knowledge of goldfish is quite limited.  I would never know when to put him back in the bowl so that he would for sure come out of it.  Bad idea all the way around.  But you have to be creative to keep the kids’ attention, right?  Think outside the box, or in this case, the bowl.

The funeral in Friendswood went well.  There was a good group present in spite of the family’s fears that not many would show up.  The funeral home did a very nice job setting everything up.  They even arranged for the military honors to be carried out.  That part was kind of strange, though.  They soldiers had to be at another funeral as well, so they did the honors at the very beginning of the service.  One marched in, stood at the head of the casket and saluted.  The second stayed in the back of the room, held a bugle to his lips, and played a recording of taps.  After the recording ended, he joined his comrade at the casket.  They folded the flag and presented it to the wife.  Always a touching experience.  It really set a somber mood for the service, though.  The family wanted it to be more light-hearted, so it took a while to regain that feeling.  By the time we ended, though, several folks had shared some stories and encouragement was taking place. 

I stopped at Sonic on the way home for a bite to eat because our home group was meeting at our house and I didn’t want to interrupt them.  Of course the interruption happened anyway.  When I walked in they had an ice cream birthday cake ready for the three birthdays in the house – me, Chris (on Saturday), and Mom (on the 20^th).  Gotta love those folks.  They do love a party.  Bryan still led the Bible study for me, and he did a good job.  The really strange part was getting to sit next to Chris and not having to be concerned with operating the computer for the songs.  I just might could get used to that. 

Psalms 105:2 says, “Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of all his wonderful acts.”

Father, thank you for the love I saw expressed in different ways yesterday.  Encouragement at the funeral.  Ice cream cake at home group.  It may look different, but it’s love all the same.  Amen.