Blogging No No

Blogging No No
I am fixing to do a 'no-no' in blogdom. Even though I am not real sure who makes all these rules that we must all abide by...I just get informed by my husband and others of the etiquette that goes along with blogging. Well, blehsppptsssz! to that!
The Frontline Retreat is coming up and it is all about the Basics. My brother wrote a blog the other day and I am pasting it here....He had some wisdom to share(even though he is much younger and I am much smarter) and I wanted to pass it along. I couldn't have said it better myself.

What God can teach using spilled soup Current mood: contemplative
Ok, I know, weird title, but hang with me. As most of you know, I don't go into work on a normal day until 12:30, and since I could walk to work if I wanted, I usually wake up around 9:45, lay in bed and watch tv till about 11 or 11:30 then I have lunch. At 12, I usually begin getting ready for work. So, last Thursday, I decided to eat some Campbell's chicken-noodle soup for lunch. I'm still dressed for bed, mind you. I pulled the soup out of the microwave, then go to my futon couch to sit down to enjoy my soup. As I sit, my soup spills on my lap and stomach, burning me. I of course went on my typical angry tirade, which turned from being pissed about the soup to my angry expression of my feelings about my current lot in life. How I feel like I'm going nowhere, and I'm not even getting there fast. Well, from that point on, it was as if God decided to prove me wrong about my life. As a lot of you know, I've been talking to a man named Michael Madden out in California who runs a mentor-apprentice program for broadcasters, and I'm wanting to get into the program. Well, I called and left him a voicemail that evening, and he returned my call. We couldn't put me with the original mentor he had in mind for me here in Austin. He said he could look in other outlets, and I agreed. Friday afternoon, he leaves me a message telling me he's found someone who works at the local adult-contemporary station, , and the mentor also knows and is very good friends with Ryan Schue, the program director at KJCE, and she said that if I do well in the program, and if a spot opens up at KJCE, she'll totally go to bat for me with Ryan. Of course, I'm stoked! God knows how to prove me wrong, and I couldn't be happier about it. Yes, God has His own timing on things, but it was as if He was waiting for me to get to my last straw...or noodle. Recently, I've been re-reading a book I first read 4 years ago. I keep buying new copies of it intending on reading it again, and always end up giving it away before I can. It's an amazing book, and I would reccomend it to anyone. The book is Joshua by Fr. Joseph Girzone. for those who don't know, Jesus and Joshua are the same name, Jeshuah (pronounced yeh-SHU-uh) in Hebrew. The concept is what if, between His first coming and His 2nd coming, Jesus visited us again. It's anamazing book that simplified my faith when I first read it. It broke my faith back down to the fundementals, much like that football coach after the huge, spirit-crushing loss. He told his players they were getting back to the fundementals and held up a football saying, "Boys, this is a football." It was as if God was showing me "Ok, Grant, back to the fundementals. This is faith. This is what a relationship with Me is supposed to be." Many of my pretentions and trappings of religiosity faded and melted and burned away, and I grew deeper and gained a zest and zeal for faith that I had lost over the years. Now that I'm reading this book again, it's having a different affect on me. It's giving me a mature peace about faith and deepening my relationship with God.
Same book, same story, but there are details that I missed the first time around that I'm picking up on this time around, and I love it when God does that. There is also a movie based on the novel from Epiphany Films. It changes some of the details of the book, but it's from a Christian point of view, so it keeps the spirit of the original story. At one point, a character in the film who lost her husband to an auto accident, tells Joshua that her life is a mess, picks up a glass vase, and slams it to the ground, thus shattering the piece into a million pieces. "That's my life! And it can't be fixed!" she sobs. When Joshua leaves town, the woman is also leaving town for a new job. She's talking with a priest who tells her before Joshua left, he made something for her. It was a glass figurine of an angel made of those same broken pieces. The priest, Father Pat, says "Amazing! He took a million pieces of broken glass and made something incredible!" Maggie, the woman, adds quietly, "Something whole."
That really got me. I had felt on Thursday, after the soup, that my life was in a million pieces and didn't look like it would be fixed. God's taking my life in a million pieces and is making something whole. I hope this blog inspires some one, at least one person. Just thought I'd share my thoughts, and what God's been doing lately. It really is amazing!