March 12 – “The Anderson wedding wrap”

Well, we got Cory and Sara all married up last night.  There were a few tense moments, though.  I think Sara’s grandma was a bit excited to get things going.  I told her that when she was seated we would begin.  So she went and got herself seated about ten minutes early.  One of the groomsmen successfully retrieved her, though.  And speaking of groomsmen, the tall, very thin guy?  Popped a gut button on his tux before we got started.  The skinniest guy in the whole church.  The other groomsmen were all willing to make necessary adjustments, like buttoning just the bottom button, but that wouldn’t have gone over too well with the myriad of female “observers.”  Fortunately, the handy dandy representative of the church leapt into  action, though, and had a safety pin out in no time.  Crisis averted.

Next up was the request of the bride that I appeal to the crowd not to use their cell phones to take pictures during the ceremony.  I figured I had to do something to get their attention first, so I regally approached the stage.  Once there I pulled out my own cell phone and with great rigor and exaggerated motions, I took a selfie with the crowd in the background.  Then I turned to the group and said, "Sara has asked that you not do anything like that with your cell phones during the ceremony.  And remember, she is a cop, so if you do she will probably arrest you.”

Ah, stress.  Happens every time there is a small child involved in the wedding.  This time  there were no less than five.  The three little flower girls were as cute as they could be, of course.  They apparently decided early on that they were not walking down the aisle by themselves, though.  And I guess they didn’t know each other well enough to be comforted by that presence.  So they chose the next best thing.  Well, from their perspective I guess it was always the first best thing.  Just took us longer to catch up with their logic.  Each of them had a Mommy who was in the bridal party, so they simply took Mom’s hand and walked with her.  Precious stuff.  And their subsequent antics during the ceremony were the stuff videos were made to capture.  Non-stop wiggling.  Felt like I was at one of our Seaside family worship services.  My favorite came when one of them sat down on the step very quietly, just as Mom asked of her.  But she oh-so-slowly inched her way across the front of the stage, still sitting, mind you.  Masterfully done.

A solution for the boys’ dilemma was not so easy, however.  Ethan, the older guy did just fine.  He’s a bit of a showman anyway.  In fact he did his best to help when Little Jameson balked at the thought of the long walk into the sea of strangers.  No amount of encouragement was reaching him.  Jameson simply wouldn’t budge, in spite of the promise of Skittles and a reunion with Daddy up at the front.  Not worth a battle, though.  The bride was fine with whatever happened, so we pushed on through without Jameson, who calmly enjoyed the ceremony playing with his toy fire truck and munching on Skittles.  So did his Dad.  The munching on Skittles part, not the fire truck.

Oh, and speaking of Ethan, that showman disguised as a ring bearer.  When I asked, “Who presents this woman to be married to this man?” the bride’s Dad dutifully and respectfully answered, “I do,” at which point an echo was heard bouncing through the building.  It was Ethan crying out, “I do, too.” 

The post-wedding photography session went about as expected.  Lots of family stuff around the stage area.  Then they headed into the church’s little outdoor atrium.  Lots of pretty flowers and greenery.  Perfect backdrop for even more photos.  The favorite segment of that session was by far not included in the planned repertoire of the camerawoman.  The groom made a valiant attempt to leap into the arms of one of the groomsmen in a staged repeat of a certain move made famous in the movie Dirty Dancing.  Well, he made two attempts, actually.  And neither of them were particularly successful.  Fortunately for the happy couple, though, a certain renegade pastor happened to have his cell phone camera in video mode at an opportune moment or two.  We’ll have to get that one shared in all the right places.

We all finally made our way up to Texas City where the reception was to be held.  Yep.  Ceremony in Galveston.  Reception in Texas.  Not many people can say their wedding covered two separate countries in thirty minutes’ time.  There was a bit of a snafu with the food, though.  Catering was by none other than Chick-Fil-A, a fitting tribute to the simple tastes of the bride and groom.  But somewhere there was a missed communication concerning mashed potatoes and green beans.  Neither were anywhere on the premises.  I heard one supervisor making tentative plans to nab a batch of taters from over at the KFC, but I’m not sure if that ever came to fruition.  Mashed potatoes did make an appearance, though.  As did some of those little weenies.  But hey, Chick-Fil-A is all about the chicken, right?

Probably my favorite part of the entire night was reuniting with a huge crowd of Seaside youth who have all grown up and are doing their best to act like adults.  Kind of like Cory and Sara were doing.  Let’s see if I can get them all mentioned.  Mama Chris and Pastor Kelley, of course.  And semi-adults Melissa, Rita, Anne, Eric, and I suppose we have to include Marcus in this category.  But then there were Megan, Cody, Cory, Jacob, Houston, Allie, Melissa, Ashley, Sydney, Jimmy, Travis, Matt, Lora, Kelly, Josh, Thomas, MacKenzie, and Nathan.  Quite the makings for a full-blown reunion sometime in the future, don’t you think?  We did numerous photos together at the picture booth, so at least a few of them should be showing up on FaceBook.  There were quite a few other Seasiders in attendance as well.  Connoisseur of fine Chick-Fil-A dips Ed graciously allowed Chris and I to join him and Lauren and Cathy at their table.   Twinkle-toes Billy, was there, owning the dance floor with his gorgeous dance partner (and daughter) Emily.  And good ol’ Silver-Nose Jamie.  He took creative artwork to the extreme.  The bride and groom had a canvas set up where people could leave their fingerprints and a brief message.  Get it?  Fingerprints for the two cops?  I loved the creativity.  And so did Jamie.  Except he was apparently told by somebody that the smudges on the canvas were all nose prints.  I mean, come on.  Anybody can do fingerprints.  But nose prints?  Now that’s special.  So Jamie buried his nose in the inkpad and squashed it upon the canvas, making his indelible mark – his nose mark.  Like I said, good ol’ Silver-nose.

I’m sure there were plenty of others that I missed mentioning, and plenty of anecdotes that were certainly worthy of telling.  Well, maybe not that worthy.  But with that, I join with Cory and Sara in declaring the mission a success.  They slapped a punctuation mark on the wedding ceremony by smacking a high five just before the kiss.  So picture here an open palm, all ready for you to connect with it on your screen.  Or maybe a lips emoji that you can literally smack.  Or maybe … just say a prayer for Cory and Sara, get some rest, and I’ll see you in church tomorrow morning.

Revelation 5:13-14 says, “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’

The four living creatures said, ‘Amen,’ and the elders fell down and worshiped.

Father, walk with Cory and Sara in their new life together.  Draw them closer to you so they can get closer to each other.  Amen.

March 11 – “Mini-hurricanes”

We went to the rehearsal last night for a wedding I’m doing tonight.  It’s the wedding that was scheduled for the church that burned down a month or so ago.  The bride and groom were able to find an alternative venue at the Central Christian Church.  That’s one I had never been inside of.  And its design was very … interesting.  It had the traditional center aisle with pews on each side.  Very intimate feel, nice for a wedding. 

Kind of a God-church feel as you looked toward the platform area.  Your eyes wanted to move upward.  But then there wasn’t all that much to look at as your eyes rose, so the next logical eye movement was in the Jesus church direction – look around.  That’s when I began to notice something a bit strange.  The walls were … stone.  Not decorative stone, mind you.  They just looked like flat concrete blocks, all stacked on one another from floor to ceiling.  All in all it looked to be a great place to be in a hurricane … or a nuclear holocaust.

And on the stage was a table.  A stone table.  It wasn’t cracked in the center yet, so I suppose Aslan hadn’t been there.  (A little literary imagery there).  The thing about the table though, aside from its … uh, sturdiness … was the fact that it only came up to just below my waist.  And all along the back side of it were chairs.  Stone chairs.  And everything was somehow bolted into the floor.  Now the chairs had comfortable cushions in them, and the table had a state of the art microphone sitting on it.  It’s just that a stone table was not at all what I expected to have to work around.  We got everyone placed, though, and I think some of the little kids might even make it all the way down the aisle.  There are five involved, not counting the junior bridesmaid.  She’ll be fine.  As will the older of the ring bearers.  It’s the three under the age of three that will be the wild cards.  But as I told the wedding party, whatever they do will be the right thing.  Just go with the flow.  Hey, if the building can withstand a hurricane outside, we can handle the antics of some precious little mini-hurricanes inside.

Revelation 5:11-12 says, “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders.  In a loud voice they sang: ‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’”

Father, send your Spirit in a great way tonight.  Grant us all flexibility to go along with our anticipation.  Amen.

March 10 – “Standardized testing”

So Cailyn is taking the standardized tests at school.  She already took Reading and what sounds like some kind of grammar.  Today she goes for math.  I’m curious.  What do they testing for in first grade, anyway?  Is this some kind of pre-PSAT or something?  Maybe if she does well enough she can just skip high school and head on to college.

I asked her what the test was like.  Tried to keep the question as open-ended as possible.  She said, “You read a story and they ask you questions and you have to go back into it and answer them.  And then they take the staples out and push each page into a computer and the computer grades it so we can’t even make any pencil marks on it.”  There it is.  A first-grader’s take on standardized testing.  She even had Chris write out some test questions on our Family Worship story so she could answer them.  Oh, and of course she had to have two little ovals to fill in what her choice was on each one.  She did really well, too.

In fact she is really getting into the story of the Exodus.  After all, her Uncle Josh and her cousin Caleb are the only ones who get to go into the Promised Land with all the children.  Sounds like an awful lot of fun to me.  Oh, and she loves that her cousin (Caleb) is apparently older than her uncle (Josh) in the story.  “That’s just silly.”  And I have to add that she is not at all impressed with the Israelites’ whining and complaining and grumbling all the time.  We thought it interesting that she picked up on Moses’ disobedience right away when he “hit the rock two times” instead of just talking to it like God said.  I think the girl is learning to listen.  I was really impressed when she did some synthesis of events and commented, “And, I see a common thing in there.  Everybody’s name has ‘ites’ in it.”  She’s right, you know.  Amorites and Edomites and Moabites and Israelites.  We did have to do some teaching on one word that came up.  “Mourning.”  Happened when Aaron died.  Thirty days of crying and being sad?  Not fun, but it’s more about remembering the person you will miss because he is gone.

So how well do you think you would do on Chris’ little impromptu true or false quiz?  Cailyn was perfect.  Give it a try.  True or false?

1.  Jeremy and Calvin were spies.

2.  Moses talked to the rock for water.

3.  Everyone was happy when Aaron died.

So how did you do, Bible scholars?

Revelation 5:9-10 says, “And they sang a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll

and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.  You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.’”

Father, thank you for teaching opportunities as well as learning ones.  Amen.

March 9 – “Ultimate Someone”

I once again drove all the way into Texas yesterday.  This time it was for a pastor’s meeting in Friendswood.  I almost talked myself out of going though.  I mean, besides the thought of leaving the Island, there was quite the threat of severe weather hovering over the area.  As it turned out, though, the weather pretty much held off, except for a few sprinkles when I arrived and one patch of thunderstorm on my way home.  The speaker was pretty interesting, and to top it off, everyone got a free copy of his book, Jesus on Leadership.  Looks pretty interesting.

Chris and I fell back into photo cleansing mode once I returned home.  It has been quite a job to get the digital photos we have into their proper file on our external hard drive so we can access them more easily in the future.  I know.  Even that is passé what with storage on the cloud and all.  I just have a hard time renting space in nothingness.  At least this way I feel like I own the photos.  Kind of like buying a house.  And like buying a house, the maintenance is a pain.  So far we have discovered that we don’t have administrator permission to access three of our photo files.  Well, actually make that two.  One of them suddenly allowed us back in, but whited out a handful of the individual pictures as not in our purview to gaze upon any longer.  Sigh.  Once again, I thought I was the administrator.  Great lesson to learn here, I guess.  There is always someone higher up with more control than you think you have.  I’m just glad my “Ultimate Someone” also loves me. 

Revelation 4:11 says, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”

Father, thank you for loving me even in the midst of your awesome power.  Amen.

March 8 – “Team of Tiny Terrors”

Well, what an exciting softball game last night.  Cailyn’s Team of Tiny Terrors, also known as the Redbirds, had their second game of not just the season … it was the second game of most of their lives.  They have already come a long way from playing in the dirt out around second base or chasing butterflies in the outfield.  Well, most of them have.  They are finally starting to get the hang of actually swinging at the ball instead of just swinging because the coach said to swing.  A select few (Cailyn is among them) have figured out the fielding thing.  Now they are facing a whole new challenge (beyond dealing with the constant barrage of softball moms and dads telling their kids what to do) – where to run after they hit it, and what to do with the ball when they do catch it. 

Cailyn’s prime accomplishment last night was in batting.  She struck out her first game and was pretty sad that she “didn’t get to run.”  Her first time up this time, however was quite a different story (and the fact that she worked on it with DadDad had nothing to do with her success, I’m sure).  She smacked a line drive up the middle and made it easily to first base.  Her second time up there were runners on at first and second.  Cailyn hit a dribbler in front of the plate – a perfectly positioned swinging bunt.  She made it to first easily.  The runner on second came around to score – RBI Cailyn.  The only scary moment came when everyone realized that the little girl who had been on first had stopped halfway to second and was awaiting further instructions.  Fortunately the coach got her attention before the youngster with the ball realized what was happening.  And in the field Cailyn the Shortstop was flawless.  She fielded several grounders hit to her and did exactly what her coach had told her to do.  That resulted in an unassisted putout at home on one of those grounders.  Then the very next batter hit another one right to her.  Again she fielded it perfectly, and again she took off running for home plate, just as the coach had told her.  However, this time there was no runner coming from third.  There was one coming from second to third, though, and she could have gotten the putout there, but to her credit, she was doing what the coach told her.  And by golly, that’s what you want in a young recruit.  I think I see a practice or two in the near future on basic baseball strategy – learning the game.  They did lose.  I think I heard the score was 5-3 (a comeback in the bottom of the last inning fell just short).  But after the game the girls were laughing and hugging and celebrating like it was a World Series victory.  Cailyn said later she thought they did win.  Guess what, Cailyn?  You did win.  In more ways than you know. 

I just read back through this post.  It is chock full of sermon illustrations.  “What to do with the ball when you do catch it.”  Being skillful at what you do in life doesn’t really matter when you don’t know how it applies to the things that really count.  “Doing what the coach told her.”  We have the greatest coach imaginable in Jesus.  At the very least follow his lead, do what he says.  “Learning the game.”  And we have a great playbook called the Bible.  Couldn’t hurt to learn some of the basics of this game we call life.  I’m proud of you, Cailyn.  Learn baseball.  Learn life.

Revelation 3:21 says, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.”

Father, thank you for the great lessons to learn from a simple game.  Amen.

March 7 – “In both worlds”

We took Cailyn to her softball practice yesterday at the Lassie League fields.  The Galveston College Lady Whitecaps were playing a softball game at the same time on the neighboring field.  I positioned myself on the top row of the stands so that I could keep an eye on Cailyn and watch some of the Whitecaps game as well.  (The Whitecaps eventually won the game, by the way.  7-4). 

I must have stood out in my mediatorial-ish position, one foot in both worlds so to speak.  A gentleman from the college game walked over and offered this word of observation.  With a nod of his head toward Cailyn’s team of six and seven year olds, he offered: “Before you know it they will be playing over here.  Time goes by fast, you know.”  I could certainly agree with the truth in that statement, as well as the sentiment behind it.  (Doesn’t mean I have to particularly like it, though).  Can’t keep them youngsters forever, no matter how hard we try. 

Revelation 3:19 says, “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.”

Father, thank you for the time we have with our little guys while they are little guys.  Keep them safe as they grow into big guys.  That’s their job, after all.  Amen.

March 6 – “Freeing up space”

We experienced what I would call a tedious day yesterday.  Oh, we had options, to be sure.  We could have gone to a few flag football games.  Sorry we missed those.  We talked about going to Moody Gardens to see the new Imax movie on the national parks.  We were even close to going to the new Bryan Museum that used to be an orphanage where I would play football once a week when I was in high school.  But alas, “the best lain plans” don’t always work out. 

Instead we spent the day in front of the computer.  That’s a typical day for me, but this time Chris joined me.  with the A&M and then the Baylor basketball games in the background, we plowed through the photos on her phone.  The idea was for her to locate the digital copy on the computer external hard drive, make sure it was in its proper place, and only then delete it from her phone.  Or not.  She kept  plenty of favorites to look at.  The point was to free up space for her to be able to take plenty of pictures when we go to DisneyWorld in May.  I think we are well on our way.  We worked our way all the way through to November of 2013 (working backwards from 2016).  She deleted around a thousand so far, but she still has 900 plus on there.  If anyone ever doubted that Chris was the Queen of Collecting Images, the Princess of Photography, I’m pretty sure our day yesterday can dispel any doubts. 

One weird thing did arise in our search.  When we got to December 2013 we discovered that we were not allowed access to one of the folders on our computer.  It said we had to contact our administrator for permission.  So wait.  I am the administrator.  I never kicked anyone out of permission to look at photos.  It wouldn’t even let me move the folder around or rename it.  Very strange.  Fortunately we had yet another backup plan.  That particular folder was among others we have also saved on Chris’s laptop.  I had to change the name slightly, but it worked to copy it and paste it back on the external drive in its proper place.  I probably wouldn’t have tried so hard, but the folder that was mysteriously restricted?  Christmas Day.  Gotta have Christmas Day. 

Revelation 2:10 says, “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Father, thank you for our Christmas Day recovery.  Those memories are pretty important to us.  Thanks for the recovery you pulled off on the first Christmas Day.  Impressive.  Amen.