Continually Humbled

Just in case we were getting a bit prideful, God saw it fit to put us in our place...again.

Not that Dan nor I thought that we were getting prideful but obviously God knows something we don't.

What happened? Oh, well, we were speaking at a church all day Sunday. A very familiar church, the one that Dan grew up in and that his parents still attend. A church where we feel really comfortable, know and love many of the people, and a place where we were completely at ease. That was until a half hour after the early morning service started. Mind you, the service started at 8:15 AM. My children are usually just waking up about 8:15 AM so that right there was interesting (oh, how we love our coffee!). Unfortunately we had to leave Sammie behind at my parents because she had been diagnosed with a severe ear infection and strep throat on Friday. Ugh. Larry was having an all nighter Saturday night (and really, I didn't need to stay with a bunch of teenage boys...we might try it one night to see how crazy it really gets but not a night before we have to speak all day) so we had spent the night at my parent's house.

Dan had gone and set up our table Saturday afternoon so all we had to do was turn the digital photo frame we have on and go to the service. As the pastor began his sermon all of a sudden we heard this extremely loud and obnoxious: Bam. Coo Coo! Bam. Coo Coo! that continued to go off every 15 minutes for a solid minute. Wow, I thought. I know they did a lot of renovations since we've been here last but they really put in a coo-coo clock. Doesn't that bother the pastor? Dan was thinking what person left their cell phone on with that awful sound. Finally, the pastor had to stop his sermon to ask someone to please take care of it. Guess what? It was us! How humiliating! Somehow the alarm setting on the photo frame got turned on and was turned up as loud as it could go. We've used it before and this has never happened. Oh goodness. Go ahead. Laugh. We can now too!

And (oh yes, there is more!) during the early service I was fine standing up in front with Dan, only five minutes, with the three boys. Smaller crowd and sometimes I seriously like to be on stage. Second service was a different story though. Lots more people. I physically started shaking this time and Toby was picking his nose and yelling out "Oma!" and waving his hands back and forth to get his grandmother's attention. Oh yes. I didn't even dare look at anyone. I was "captivated" by Dan this time!

The last thing (yes, there is yet another) is that after the evening service, after Dan had given an hour long presentation of our ministry the floor was opened up for Q & A. Someone asked about schooling. I was sitting in the back with Dan's parents and the boys. I should have been up front to help answer questions. I tried to keep my mouth shut until this question. Dan answered and I couldn't believe it. He said something that we had decided against and I just had to put things straight. Afterward the sweetest lady came up to me and said something to the effect of "with Sarah, you always get the truth." Yup. That's me. No sugar coating it here. I sometimes think I would like to be that soft spoken, kind, gentle, caring woman but the reality is that I have this strong willed, loud, passionate, outspoken personality (label me Choleric/Meloncholic, it's OK, I've studied all about it and will have to one day share this passion with you). I constantly struggle with my flesh and my spirit. I do know that if anyone sees or thinks anything different, that is HIS Spirit working in me and I am so thankful that He loves me enough to not give up on me, no matter what it takes.

The "again" part of this is that at the last church we spoke at during our road trip after Dan had given the morning message absolutely no one, not one single person, said anything about the message which seemed a bit odd. Nothing good or bad. Later that afternoon we asked our host family about it and it turns out that they are a King James only church and Dan had been using his NIV Spanish/English Bible!! The kicker is that he had thought about using my small ESV but didn't and after he apologized to the pastor for his mistake, this pastor said that sometimes he uses the ESV for personal study and really likes that translation too. Ugh.

Despite these mistakes, it is a wonder that God sees fit to continue to use us. If there was ever any doubt before that there is nothing good in us, we know for sure that it is only by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us that any good comes from anything we do.