To Be a Leaf

Last week was one of difficulty, but not because of outward circumstances.  For three of the five school days, our after school program director was out of the state at a conference.  What this meant for us was extra and unfamliar responsibility.  Planning, scheduling, putting specific kids with adults, main discipline, more parent conversations were all in store.  Normally when I can see any future changes coming involving me that would otherwise be excruciatingly uncomfortable, I tend to put them out of my mind and believe in my head that everything will be all right.  Coming off of a bad week previous, I was not anticipating a cake walk.  It would not be a piece of cake.  Why cake is used in analogies meaning "simple" I do not know.  I knew that any amount of planning on my part could not and would not take care of all the uncontrollable elements of every day.  Certain kids have good and bad days at the program and it's sometimes impossible to know what kind you're going to get.

This past week, I knew I would need to rely on God and trust Him that these three days undermanned would not ruin the lives of these eleven kids.  Wednesday started with me driving our huge 15 passenger white van alone to pick up the kids from Brentwood Elementary (turned out to be four kids that day).  They got in quietly, talked quietly and not rudely and the ride was amazing.  Normally, kids are yelling excitedly, jumping over the seats, not buckling up.  I thanked God.  Went to pick up more kids from North Shore Elementary, the rowdier bunch (six kids), and had an okay ride back to the church.  To not go into extreme details of the day, I will say that I had a positive outlook on how the kids were handling the different feel of having one less adult there.  Many of the kids really stepped it up, but there were a couple that had a lot of struggles.  Chassidy, who was in the program last year, did not want to play a particular game during academic time and, as she told her father at the end of the day, threw a small white board to the ground.  This led to more indignance (which I think is the correct word for what is perceived unfairness).  I will share a little more about her a little later.

I went to church Wednesday night and heard an amazing word preached.  This is starting to become a theme.  Dr. Ralph D. West preached on John 3:1-8.  The story of Nichodemus and Jesus.  It was a powerful message with a ton of information, but what really came through to me was verse 8.  The verse says, "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."  Ruwach.  (ROO - ock).  A Hebrew word meaning wind, breath, spirit.  The Dr. said the word like the sound of the wind.  The Holy Spirit will do as He pleases.  He might be a gentle breeze or a full-on storm.  The question asked the congregation--Are you holding onto a pole trying not to be moved by the wind?  This question hit me square in the heart.  Am I?  I've got to be honest, it is often times difficult for me to look deep into the mirror and see my own faults, and I have been trying to avoid answering this question all week.  But I can't escape it.  When I'm convicted to obey God with my whole day, every moment, do I follow through?  The Dr. rode this wind analogy a bit and started to compare a devout and humble Christ-follower to a floating leaf that moves every direction the air's breath directs.  Much like riding a wave, you can't create it yourself.

There are many poles in my life that I'm unwilling to trust God to let go of.  I tend to hold on tighter when the wind picks up or blows a different direction than the way I want it to.  This past week, praise the Lord, had many good things happen that we could not take credit for or even begin to understand how they happened.  Not being very good at discipline, I feared having to deal with Chassidy the day she went berzerk.  Anything the adults would say to her, she'd have a quick biting comeback and would listen to nobody.  Her dad came to pick her and her sister Charity up.  Being on "Parent Contact", the lowest spot on our discipline chart, we have the kids tell their parents why and how they ended up down there.  Chassidy, her fiery attitude turned cold, looked at her dad and confessed her tantrum and what she did that day.  In a soft voice she uttered, "I threw the board because I didn't want to play that game anymore."  She looked as if tears were on the way.  The father told her he would have a "talk" with her when they got home.  I gotta tell ya, this dad loves her girls very much.  He is a very sincere and hard-working man when he gets work do to.  Thursday and Friday, Chassidy was doing everything she could to follow all our directions to the point, even when others would try to provoke her.

My heavenly Father crowns us with compassion, does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquity.  Confessing to God I believe is the result of realizing the depth of our disobedience.  Although I have no idea what was going on in Chassidy's mind at the time she told her dad, but it paints a good picture of the importance of specifically naming the things that we do or say that displease God.  Not "sorry Lord for all the sins I may have committed" but rather, "Lord, when I snapped in the van on Thursday out of anger, I wasn't trusting in your power and I'm sorry." (This might have actually happened to me.)

When you hear the voice of God, perhaps when reading His word or through prayer, I encourage you to take on the personality of a leaf that has fallen from a tree.  (No, the leaves on the Florida trees in Autumn are not as beautiful as up north unfortunately).  These poles that we hold onto might be sins we need to confess, fears we need to let God remove, idols that reveal we love something or someone more than our Savior.  From your poles, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you need to make like a tree...and leaf.

                                                    (Chassidy after a root beer float)

Right Angle

"There are those of us here that are going through a time of bereavement, and still there are others that may feel as though they are walking in the valley of the shadow of death.  But Lord, help us to know that you are here with us...Amen."  As I arrived late to church Wednesday evening, these are the words I heard the pastor speak on the TV screen in the hallways of the church.  It amazed me the timing of his words, the need in my own soul that day to know that God was with me that day.  That day of all days.  In all my days spent in Jacksonville, including way back in the summer of 2010, I don't think I'd ever experienced a more difficult day of ministry.  By no means was it as extreme as walking in the valley of the shadow of death, but if I had ever been in a valley, Wednesday was it.

Every other Wednesday in Duval County, the schools experience early release.  When Brentwood Elementary and North Shore Elementary both get out about two hours earlier than normal days, that's two extra hours of planning, monitoring, and focus.  The feeling of early release is usually kind of antsy.  I have mentioned in previous blogs my own wrong desires to want perfect, quiet, and obedient kids all day every day to feed my own selfishness.  Well, on this day, we went outside to play some kickball and some kids wanted to sit out due to the extreme heat.  Fine.  Understandable.  We get inside to do a painting craft to help us remember the memory verse.  The kids are generally interested in the painting.  Some of the paint gets on the tables.  That's okay.  Easy clean up.  Next is carpet time where the kids are all supposed to sit on the carpet and receive announcements about the day.  For some reason, a few kids had a really difficult time sitting still and focusing on the speaker.  As carpet time was going on, I was talking to a 3rd grader who decided she'd rather stand in the hallway instead of following directions.  She gave no response and stared blank into space.  This type of (no) response has really been difficult for me to deal with.  When they can clearly hear your question but make no movement or sound to indicate they are listening.  It's very easy for me to get angry and ask the question louder and demand more strongly for "respect".  This girl decided to sit at her seat away from the group and continue to deny my presence there.  I sat in a chair next to her.  Everything I told her I'm sure went through one ear and out the other.  As I'm talking to her, her 2nd grade brother is in the carpet time area knocking over chairs and running away.  His sister laughed really hard, only encouraging him to continue his craziness to get some laughs.  Great.  Now what do I do?  Him being very small, it was easy for me to get a hold of his arm to slow him down.  Once again, no word that I said was getting through to him.  To make matters even worse, both of these kids' 5th grade cousin came over to "discipline" them herself.  When a kid tells another kid what to do, even if they are related, it usually doesn't turn out well.  This led to the two girls forcefully shoving each other which caused one of our female staff members to bring down the "teacher" hammer on the 5th grader who then starting sharguing (shout arguing) with the staff member.  While all this is happening, another staff member is trying to keep the kids that are on the carpet focused on him amidst the chaos.  After carpet time came snack time.  Now it just so happens that the brother and sister had the jobs of water bottle distributor and snack distributor.  While the sister had cooled off and made some better choices, the brother was still not listening to any instructions, even intentionally doing the exact opposite.  When I told him he was not allowed to do his job, he flipped and got angry.

When kids at the program make wrong decisions, as staff members, we tell them what they did wrong and give them expectations and alternate ways to deal with similar circumstances.  If they turn things around, their punishment (which at this point is moving their clothes pin down a color) gets erased.  In either case, a conversation happens with the kids when they are on a down-spiral.  What we've never really anticipated happening is multiple children having really bad days.  This means adults are having conversations when the other kids are kind of being hung out to dry.  Luckily, the other kids had a handle on when academic time was and did their work on their own pretty well.  Despite this positive, my blood boiled, anger was being affirmed, and continued frustration set the tone for much of my night.  When the parents/grandparents were talked to about the kids, and all the other kids had gone, Marc asked me if I wanted to throw the football around, understanding the hurricane that just blew through two:fiftytwo.  I thought throwing something with all my energy would do me some good and it worked for a while.  I made that football cut through the wind and into Marc's hands as if an arrow was knocking down a horrible beast.  That day brought thoughts of "Nothing good will ever happen again," and "I want to go home and never do this again."

Throughout the day, I was angry at the kids, angry at myself, and angry at the devil and sin.  However, I couldn't get mad at God.  I almost didn't go to church, showed up 15 minutes late so that I could eat a few forkfuls of noodles since I had missed lunch because I had to plan the painting activity.  I drove to church alone, wanted to sit with my friends as if nothing was wrong and then leave and go home.  I had made up my mind that I would be angry for the rest of the night....until I stepped inside the doors of Shiloh Baptist.  I was greeted with a nod by one guy still waiting by the door for any possible stragglers.  Then, "There are those of us here that are going through a time of bereavement, and still there are others that may feel as though they are walking in the valley of the shadow of death.  But Lord, help us to know that you are here with us...Amen."  Amen indeed.  God told through that pastor's prayer that He was with me at the that church, with me at the after school program.  It was still difficult to focus on the message, but my anger turned to sorrow.  I had been doing ministry under my own strength, for my own reasons.  "If I could just get these kids to behave, then I would feel good about myself being a good role model."

I started reading a book called Give Them Grace by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick and Jessica Thompson.  It's introduction sets the tone for the rest of the book.

"What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city?  Over half a century ago, Presbyterian minister Donald Grey Barnhouse offered his own scenario in his weekly sermon that was also broadcast nationwide on CBS radio.  Barnhouse speculated that if Satan took over Philadelphia (the city where Barnhouse pastored), all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets would be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other.  There would be no swearing.  The children would say, 'Yes, sir' and 'No ma'am,' and the churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ is not preached."

The book talks about how raising kids to be polite and obey all the rules is not the gospel.  The idea of the gospel is that there is God's law, which nobody can keep, therefore is in need of a savior and of grace.  Grace has no buts.  Here's more of the intro to the book.

"With the right mixture of fear and guilt, I can get my three children to obey in the short term.  But my desire is not that they obey for five minutes or even for five days.  My desire is that they obey for fifty years!  And that will take something bigger and brighter than fear and guilt.  The primary reason our children fail in their doing is that they fail to grasp at a deep heart level what Jesus has already done.  They often give up in their efforts to obey because we have unconsciously trained them to obsess more over their feats for Jesus than over Jesus' feats for them."

Wow.  What is my goal in ministry?  To have the after school program digest some bad kids and hope that good kids come out?  Romans 8:28 says that God works all things for the good of those who love him.  Really?  God is going to use that terrible Wednesday for his good?  When I got home from church, I shared a couple bottles of Miller Lite with Marc and discussed the day.  I don't usually drink, but in the movies people always end up having a beer after a hard time so, why not?  We both agreed that it would be better for us to go through another Wednesday like the one we had than to have a perfect day where the kids behave and we think that we are pretty amazing.  One shows a need to glorify God, the other glorifies the self.  Brentwood is God's town.  He will make it grow, not I.



This song was definitely at the heart of what I experienced Wednesday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQnBvUiAGsI

Is a pump fake a sin?

I often wonder about the definition of deception.  It implies lying, putting on a face, making others think something else, creating diversions.  There's a lot of messiness that comes out of deception.  There's the saying that covering up a lie just creates more and more lies, like a spider's web.  Mark Twain said, "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."  If I'm being completely honest, which is something I need to work on, I need to tell you that sometimes I get some satisfaction out of being a trickster.  Please allow me to explain.

Basketball is my favorite sport.  I've played since I was in 2nd grade, been on organized teams, went to a few basketball camps, watched it on TV a ton, and I still play at the courts nearby where I stay.  I'm 6 ft tall on a good day, weigh 150 lbs on a good day, have a decent shot, can't jump or play good defense.  I grew up waiting for my growth spurt.  Always one of the shortest on the court, I got pretty good at dribbling and really comfortable at the point guard position.  Court vision and passing became key elements to my game since I'd probably never get a rebound or be anywhere near the basket.  In middle school, I use to telegraph my passes (look at who I was passing to) and thus get the ball stolen sometimes.  Getting into high school, into college, and now on the streets, my favorite play has become the no look pass.  Pretty soon, throwing off an opponent became my favorite thing to do.  When you are able to pass to someone that no one else is paying attention to, you get the feeling that you can see the invisible.  Even when you pass the ball, defenders don't know where it's going.  I've often wondered, is it wrong to try my hardest to deceive people with this?  I don't have a clear answer either way.

There are games that involve lying.  Games like Boulderdash and Malarky imply deceitfulness just in their board game titles.  Mafia is a game in which there is a designated "killer" who tries to win the game by convincing everyone that he is just an innocent "townsperson" like everyone else.  People get voted out of the game based on who people believe the mafia is.  This is a game where my competitiveness and deception can come out in very negative ways for me.  Cheating at games in order to have an advantage in them is not something I do and I get quite annoyed when others try to do it.  However, I must admit, that I have cheated in games just to see if I could get away with it.  It's like an entirely different game for me.  When the Packers scored a touchdown off of a fake field goal attempt, that rare trickery got me excited.  When Ms. Deirdree (on staff with 2nd Mile) got me out of jail (in a game of capture the flag) when the whole game she just stood still guarding our flag, that unexpected move was so awesome and memorable for me.  When a magician completely fools me, that form of deception entertains.

I guess in my recent thoughts about deception, I've been kind of curious--are these seemingly harmless forms of deception healthy?  My answer is, I have no idea.  I do know that lying and deception are sins, but is it only to the degree that it hurts someone else?  The past few weeks, I've been reading through Genesis about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  This past week I've been learning about how traits and values (both good and bad) are passed down through families.  Family life and how you are raised probably play the biggest part in the way you think and live.  Chapter 12 shows how Abraham (then Abram) lied and said that Sarah (then Sarai) was his sister and not his wife in order to protect his life.  The next generation, Isaac (in Chapter 26) does the same thing and says that Rebekah is his sister so that he isn't killed for having a beautiful wife.  This lying trait was passed down.  The next generation with Jacob gets even more messy.  Jacob disguises himself as his brother Esau and Isaac (with fading eyesight) gives Jacob the blessing instead (Chapter 27).

Anyway, I don't think I have a wrap-up/conclusion to this blog.  I know that I like no look passes, seeing what is unseen, and occasionally mind games.  I leave you with this list of questions, straight from a book I've been reading called The Emotionally Healthy Church.  These questions were written with the intention of helping Christ-followers understand the way they operate and how leaving negative ways of thinking unchecked, left under the surface, can lead to some devastating things generations from now.  I think these questions would be good for anyone to go through.  Sometimes looking back on past events from the family we grow up in can be difficult and painful and weird, but these questions are just to bring to the surface some of the ways we might negatively impact the present with our past.

"1. Describe each family member with three adjectives and their relationship.

2. Describe your parents' relationship.

3. How was conflict handled in your family? Anger?  Tension?

4. How were gender roles and authority worked out in your family?

5. How well did you family do in talking about feelings?

6. How would your family describe you? How do you think you family things about you?

7. How was sexuality talked or not talked about? What were the implied messages?

8. Were there any family "secrets" (such as pregnancy out of wedlock, incest, or major financial scandal)?

9. What was considered "success" in your family?

10. How was money handled? Spirituality? Holidays? Relationship with extended family?

11. How did your family's ethnicity shape you?

12. Were there any heroes or heroines in the family? Scapegoats? "Losers"? Why?

13. What kinds of addictions, if any, existed in the family?

14. Were there traumatic losses in the past or present, such as sudden death, prolonged illnesses, stillbirths/miscarriages, bankruptcy, or divorce?

15. How was spirituality expressed?"

This was difficult for me to do but it really helped bring to light many things that I had been lying to myself about myself.  I pray that God would show you how much you are loved through this process if you choose to take the leap of faith that He'll use it.

Unto others

It has occurred to me at many times in this past month that I have been acting selfishly, especially in the ways that I deal with the kids in our after school program.  I've gotten a lot better at disciplining kids for obviously wrong choices.  Last year, and occasionally this year, I was all about getting the kids to like and respect me. If they wanted to do something or have something, I wanted to be accommodating.  "Sure you can do this easy addition worksheet instead of this reading one that you need to learn."  "Sure you can go to the bathroom and waste time because you don't want to read."  It took me a while to understand some of the deeper reasons kids want to do things.

For the past three weeks, as I've been more disciplined to discipline, I've noticed my own tendency to want comfort.  Do I make the kids quiet down because it is rude and disrespectful when an adult is talking, or just so I can have some quiet.  One thing about living in this culture is that everything seems to be louder.  I grew up living in a duplex with upstairs neighbors so I quickly learned that being quiet meant less conflict.  However, living here in Brentwood, noise doesn't always mean something bad is happening.  Sometimes people just converse at louder decibels.  Do I need to know the details of someone's day that is standing on the opposite end of the block?  No, but that's just normal here.  When I take parts of my culture that I grew up with and implant them into a new culture believing that my way is right and theirs is wrong, I'm showing pride and a lack of understanding.  When you go into someone's house for the first time, do you automatically kick your shoes up and put your feet on the table or walk into all the rooms without invitation?  I hope not.  Anyway, my selfish wanting peace and quiet to make my life easier rather than wanting the kids to grow up as respectful human beings is a sin of mine that I must confess.

This past week, it hit me square in the heart.  I get so frustrated when the kids hear what I say and completely ignore what I'm asking them to do.  They want to be in control of their lives, even though they don't understand what sort of things are going to help them grow.  We, as the adults, can see clearly how sometimes punishment for wrong choices is the only way for the kids to understand that they did something wrong.  The more situations that are out of my control, the more I started to realize, "Man, I wonder how God feels when I completely disobey his commands or go do whatever I want to do with my life, thinking that it's going to bring growth when in reality only a life with Christ will bring any true life."  Too often do I let daily tasks or routines take priority over my relationship with God.  I'll wake up in the morning, get my Bible ready, open it up, and realize, "Let me just check my email quick," or "I need to fix me some breakfast and go to the bathroom, then I'll be ready."  Pretty soon, one task leads to another and before I know it, the day is over and not once did I acknowledge God's existence.    God knows that there is no way that I am going to obey all his commands and he wants me to understand my own weakness.  Why in the world should I expect perfection out of these kids then?

I've got one challenge and one prayer request for this week.  You probably how heard of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you..." (Matthew 7:12).  Have you ever asked yourself, "What would I have others do to/for me?"  Being completely honest with you, I just want to have someone acknowledge my existence, help me with ideas for the after-school program, pray with/for me.  Have I been doing these things to/for others?  Not really.  I was so happy when one of my friends that I haven't talked to in a while called me late at night just to catch up.  Such an easy gesture, yet so infrequently do I do this to others.  I am a selfish human being, who is commanded to love others as myself.  Man, if I loved my neighbors as love myself, they would be loved so much.  I probably wouldn't be able to stop thinking about them.

My prayer request is that God would not change my circumstances, but rather my heart.  I don't think He concerns himself with what is happening to me, but rather what is happening in me.

I can't cook

One of my responsibilites this year is to plan the Fun Friday activities which will include science experiments, learning about different countries, bringing in special guests, etc. This past Friday, we learned about Ireland (mainly because I found a children's book about Ireland that looked interesting enough to plan). I found an Irish stew recipe online that I thought would be cool for the kids to try and get a taste of Ireland. This recipe had so many different spices and ingredients that I've never bought in a store before and didn't even know if they were in every grocery store. Russet potatoes, Worcestershire sauce, and beef broth? Huh? If these are obvious things to you please don't laugh at me. Let me give you a brief history of the cooking abilities of Andrew Vollmer.

I can usually unintentionally find a way to mess up even the simplest of meals. Easy Mac, even implyed in the name, was not easy for me. Turns out, boiling the water should happen before you put the noodles in. Spaghetti. Yes, spaghetti. If you start cooking the noodles and they begin to soften and it appears that you will be able to eat more than you are cooking, don't put in more noodles and expect the new ones to magically cook faster and catch up to the ones that have been cooking already. I once cooked a frozen pizza with the cardboard still attached. You can't microwave a Chef boyardee container if the metal cap is still attached. Tomato paste is not a substitute for tomatoes. Rice burns if you keep it on low after it's already cooked. Just some helpful hints to you beginner cooks. I've learned many things that do not work.

Anyway, as I went grocery shopping with my list of ingredients, I realized that there have only been a couple times in my life where I went to store in order to follow a recipe. I was putting a lot of faith in someone else's instructions for a mean Irish stew. With 18 different items to get (luckily my roommate had some of them already), I was amazed that I found these strange foreign things. I was entering into the 90% of the grocery store I never shop in. My world was opening. Excited to start cooking, I arrived late Thursday night, preparing my mind to cook this stew the next morning. I did forget the Worcestershire sauce, but that's not that important (I think).  Here's a pic of the stew-making process which I actually kind of enjoyed.  Stew meat, garlic, parsley, beef broth, sugar, thyme, bay leaves, and salt in the pot.  Carrots, onions, and potatoes (very Irish) in the pan almost ready to be added to the pot.  It smelled great even though I had to improvise (a terrifying word for me) with some of the measurements since not much of the meat defrosted in time.  Defrosting is something I often forget to do as well.



The stew was finished by noon and I took the pot to the church since we had a staff meeting from 12-2pm before the after school program started.  I put the pot on the oven at the church on what I though was low heat.  20 minutes later, in the middle of our meeting I sensed that it was on medium high heat and burning/boiling/being ruined.  Ah well.  Another failure.  I scooped out what wasn't burnt and put it into a different pot and warned the kids that I cooked the stew and I wouldn't feel bad if they didn't like it.  Many didn't like it (weird after taste) but a couple ate a bunch of it.  If only I had anticipated possible ways for it to go wrong.  I'm still very inexperienced but it was nice to escape from the usual diet of sandwiches, pizza, cereal, and fast food.  (Don't worry, that's not all I eat.)

In the midst of all of the scheduled activities at the after school program, there are rules and expectations that hover around the room in every circumstance and situation.  These were made by the adults in order to have order in the classroom and provide the kids with an understanding of right and wrong choices.  Firstly, some rules are strictly enforced, no wiggle room for "No swearing" or "No fighting."  Especially since our expectations are up on a poster on the wall, these are set in stone.  Secondly, there are other rules that have to be created and changed as the year goes on due to the ways that that rule plays out in actual life.  For example, we started handing out individual water bottles at snack time to eliminate the wasted time from last year where kids would go get water, go to the bathroom, sometimes when it wasn't even needed.  About a week in, we realized that the kids having their own water bottles meant that they thought they could do what they wanted with "their" bottle which included squirting it at other kids.  Thus, a new rule was created.  "Playing with the water bottles results in it getting taken away and you won't get any tomorrow either."  Finally, the last kind of rule we have is the kind is of the inconsistant type.  The ones that have a gray area where one day no kid is allowed to go inside for water or a bathroom break in the middle of game time, and the next day, a kid is allowed to go inside for water or a bathroom break in the middle of game time.  It's in these inconsistancies from our own inadequecies to know the kids hearts and minds fully (as God does) where the kids are not only confused but also have that wiggle room to try to manipulate and stretch those boundaries and freedoms their sinful natures desire.

Yesterday I went to a place called Boing! with my girlfriend and her niece and it was awesome.  There were trampolines everywhere.  The employees there all had zebra-striped referee shirts on and there was an awesome dodgeball court as well.  In the open trampoline area, where the floors were completely trampolined, I tried bouncing as high as I could.  Being the cautiously daring type, I started testing the limits of this chamber of anti-gravity liberty.  Even the walls had slanted trampolines to bounce into.  I intentionally bounced off a wall onto a thick mat.  Immediately I heard "Off the walls!"  What?  I realized it has been years since I've been scolded for doing something wrong.  It took me back to the days at the local pool where I'd hear, "Stop running!" from the lifeguards.  Wanting to continue my freedom to fly, I challenged my girlfriend's niece to a race from one end of the area to the other.  As she took the lead from me, I started to run on the trampolines instead of bounce in order to catch up.  "No running!"  Are you serious?  You're just going to stand there with your striped shirt on and tell me what I can and can't do?  I got frustrated since I probably had 5 years on the worker and had no intentions of hurting anyone with my "reckless" behavior.  Being told rules without any knowledge of them existing in the first place is frustrating.  I realized that I was also confused when a different worker didn't say anything earlier when I did the same things.  It was good to at least know what the rules were so that I wouldn't do those things anymore.

Rules (or recipes) are often created by those that have experience or know the dangers of not following them.  Rules are often kept by those that either want some sort of power, self-righteousness, or in some case, genuinely want to do the right thing.  When I think of God's law, the Ten Commandments for example, I don't believe God made them so that we would be confused or frustrated with our lack of freedom.  God gave these commandments because He knows the hurt that murder causes and theft causes and adultery causes.

There is something I need to tell you, whoever may be reading this.  You may do your best to follow all the rules, do all the right things, but "whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." (James 2:10)  Being "good" or following directions does not grant you heaven when you die.  Being "good" or following directions will not help these kids in our program know the true gospel of Jesus Christ.  There were people called Pharisees in the Bible who Jesus called out in his ministry as being posers who clean the outside of their cup and dish yet have wickedness and greed on the inside (Luke 11:39-41).  Please don't be a Pharisee.  Rule-following will not save you.  If you are reading this and you know you don't follow the rules, in fact, you break them whenever you can and you know it's eating away at your soul, there is a savior who died for you even when we were in sin (Romans 5:8).  Don't worry about what people will think and definitely don't worry about being judged by Christians for your past actions.  Just come before Jesus.  Go to him.  Talk to him.  He hears you.  The only one who did follow all the rules and was without any imperfection.  He is a righteous God who searches minds and hearts (Psalms 7:9) and knows what you're going through.  He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because he was tempted in every way and was without sin (Hebrews 4:15).  Psalm 19:11-17 says
"The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the Lord are sure
and altogether righteous.
They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the comb.
By them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward."

We need help from God to keep his commands, sometimes even when we already have a relationship with Him.  One thing I'd like to remind you of is this.  It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  Take his yoke upon you and learn from him, for he is gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls.  His yoke is easy and his burden is light.

[Lord, thank you for this time getting to write your wordswith such ease through the prompting of the Holy Spirit.  You are so good to me even when I don't deserve it.]





If you have any recipes that you enjoy, feel free to send them my way at lilvollmer@gmail.com.  I definitely could use help from people who know what they're doing.