Oats and Canola Oil

Last night was the Fusion Christmas party. It was a good time.

Well... it was at least "interesting". That I can honestly say...


No really, it was fun. But I have to say that my least favorite part probably would have to be sponge bathing in the church bathroom while soaking my unmentionables in the sink next to me.


Let's recap.


Apparently, in order to show your "love" for your small group leader (notice I used caps... I felt loved, but I have a hard time believe that the other two leaders felt loved with the way their small groups went near-homicidal on them), you have to completely cover them in... well... seemingly anything that the youth pastor could grab from the church's pantry.

We played a game called the "Christmas 12 Days of Doom". If I could remember all of the actual items, and in order, I'm sure it would be SO much more fun... but alas, I was a bit distracted as I was being lathered in Maple Syrup.


What I can remember:

- We were told to come on stage as they brought in the tarps (Tarps? Never a good sign at a youth event!)

- Then, we were each assigned our very on kiddy-pool. Here I was thinking 'Hey, maybe they're going to re-enact a beach getaway for us, since it's so stinking butt-cold outside! How thoughtful... I really DO feel loved!' ... so I got cozy.

- In came the table... on the table sat 3 bins, but the three bins were covered by a big black cloth. (again - this is not usually a good sign)

- They started singing... and it all started with a box of Betty Crocker Cake Mix. Why were they name specific? I think it was to ensure that we knew they weren't going cheap and just dumping the Richfood brand of cake mix over our heads... oh no! They went WORLD class, splurged, and bought the name brand stuff. Because, after all, they loved us.

- Then came the two "things" canola oil (so shoot me I don't know what carton-thingies are called). Were they going to bake me in a 350 degree oven at the end? Well, there's no way to know. But I started-a-mixin' just in case. I was NOT going to be the leader that tasted the worst. If I was going out - I was going out tasty, my friends!

- and out came the whipped cream. At this point, I was BEGGING and PLEADING my girls not to put this gunk on my hair... "I'll bring you SOO much candy next week! SOO much candy! What do you want?! I'll totally bring it for you..." Yes, it was low. Don't judge me. You know you would've done the same thing. And unfortunately for the guys (the other two leader that were sentenced selected for the "activity") weren't with it enough to try... plus they didn't have NEARLY as much hair as I did... it only seemed fair.

- As I'm sitting and happily eating the mixture that has thus far been poured over my shoulders and a little bit down my shirt... loving the whipped cream... out comes the nastiest piece of the puzzle. From this point forward, I looked like I was the closest trash can to the tilt-a-whirl after a ride mis-hap caused everyone aboard to get a tad bit nauseous. What was this awful mess of an "ingredient"? Pork & beans. I know... totally gross, right? *mini-gag*

- After this point, it's all quite a bit fuzzy. I remember ketchup (which made the whole thing look more like a murder scene than a youth group "love" fest).

- I know somewhere in there were bags of popcorn. I tried to catch it in my mouth, but ended up gagging on a kernel and then spitting it all back out onto myself. I'm thinking I just made it worse on myself... but at least it was tasty?!

- Applesauce! I was smart enough to not put my hands into the "mixture" since the whipped cream, so I caught a few things of applesauce and had a bit of a snack. Hey - a girl's gotta eat, right?!

- Maple Syrup. I hear it takes DAYS to get this funk out of your hair. I'm SO glad I had some awesome girls doing this ... whatever it was to me. They were very gentle. *sigh*

- Oats. Alone? Probably not too shabby. But mixed with all of the above ingredients? Including Maple Syrup? Yeah... it got REALLY "icky" here... so I start making some oatmeal cookies for the friendly girls of mine. I'm not so sure why they didn't want them. I guess they were full from all of the free cookies and hot cocoa we handed out before service.

- Speaking of which... hot cocoa (powder only) was in there somewhere, too. Not so sure where... but it was there... and again - this mixture was just so nasty! Have I mentioned that I was SITTING in this gross-ness?

- Cornmeal. I think this was added earlier on, but it was FAR from the worst of the food items I had to swim in last night!

- and finally (and I mean finally!), they added the dozen eggs. In reality this wasn't as bad as it sounds. They slid RIGHT off of me (I actually had this awkward little puddle of eggs inside my indian-crossed legs - slightly inappropriate, right? Again - don't judge me). The worst part about this stuff?? It was FREEZING!!! Tell me... why do you feel that you must refrigerate the eggs that you are planning to pour over your leaders? Were you worried about them going bad?! Let's re-evaluate this decision. Ponder on where they were destined to end up... and now let's think again... did they need to be refrigerated? You people are cruel. JUST cruel!


SO there we have it. It was a pretty good time - up until they were finished with us, that is. I was whisked away (almost literally, since they had me lay on a tarp and then drug me to the bathroom) to clean myself up. And folks, this was NO easy task.

Sponge bathing in general doesn't seem like a very pleasant thing to do. Now add the setting of a church bathroom with no locks on the door and NO more than just a few little sinks. Yeah. Nice, right? At least the water was warm last night, because it's usually like liquid ice when you turn the faucet on.

Thankfully one of the other lady leaders stood guard to make sure that the door was not opened for ANY reason WHATsoever! And she did a great job. I stripped down as quickly as possible (which isn't very quick at all when you are covered in maple syrup and ketchup and trying to avoid getting it all in your hair and all over the bathroom floor) and put my unmentionables into the left sink to soak, in hopes of removing the strong smell of nastiness enough to be able to wear them home.

As I stand in the church bathroom buck-friggin-naked and trying to scrub this... pukey mixture off of myself, I realized just how little my clothes spared my body. I found gooey cake-mix caked (pun not originally intended) in places I didn't know it would ever be. I scrubbed and scrubbed, stretched my feet up into the sink to clean the funk off of them, and then finally felt as though I'd gotten as much as I could. Good golly, miss molly, that took forever!


I emerged from my whole in the bathroom to find that not only had service ended, by this time, but I also discovered that apparently in the boy's bathroom, there was a janitor's closet. Yes, folks - the guys had a nice little drain and I do believe a hose as well in order to wash off.


Fannntastic.


Ah well. At least I still had my blinky-Christmas hat. Wait... where IS my blinky Christmas hat?! OH NO!!!


Thankfully, the girl I had given it to entrusting it's safe-keeping had left it with another girl that was hanging around for a bit. It was returned safely to me just after we took our leader's group picture. Whew! That was close!!


So after being practically attacked my a nose-strong dog, last night, having him somehow manage to drag my funktified clothing over onto the carpet, leaving a trail of nasty-goodness behind him, and FINALLY getting to take a REAL shower, I felt clean and normal again.



...well, as relatively normal as I was before this whole thing, anyways... which isn't really saying much.



Good times were had by most. I stop short of saying all, but only due to the fact that I do believe that the middle school boy sitting in front of my was just shy of having a coronary over the fact that they just wouldn't put it in my hair and the high school boys were, from a distance of course, quite nearly as displeased at the "unfair"ness of the situation. Silly boys... if only you KNEW - I do believe you would've left well-enough alone.





And even better times, still, will be had next week by my girls when they embark on their MUCH earned sugary appreciation celebration. I'm sure you'll have some pretty good times, too, once I get my hands on some pictures to post from the incident... I bet you can't HANDLE your excitement!!


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PS: The only warning I was given of what was to come was an e-mail that said "bring a change of clothes that you can get messy". Am I the only one that thinks that this doesnt' even remotely prepare one for what is coming? I would've brought another pair of unmentionables, at LEAST!! *sigh*

S-L-A-C-K-E-R

That's how you spell my name. Yep - I'm a slacker, and I know it.

Last week was Thanksgiving, so that's an excuse in itself. And I hurt my back Sunday evening playing Flag Football. So... there. That's another excuse.

I could go all day with excuses. I'm full of them! But I won't put you through that...


Kicking it down a "serious notch", or two... I'm a slacker in way more ways than in just the blogosphere. And I want to share it with you. I'm going to be real - some of it is going to sound weird. Some of it will sound normal. Some of it will sound confusing. But it's real. It's one of those "ah-hah!" moments I've had over the past few weeks and it's been getting stronger and clearer since the first time it slapped me across the face.


So here's the thing: do you ever get those gifts at Christmas that you kind've have to over-act grateful for? I mean don't get me wrong - you're totally appreciative that someone took the time and money to get you a gift and that means a lot in itself, but it's one of those gifts that... well... they don't fit your personality, and yet you feel obligated to display it or wear it so that the giver will see it?!

Well, if we're honest, we've all gotten at least ONE of those gifts. Especially if you've gotten married - you get those random "what in the world?!" kinds of gifts. Right?! It's totally weird, too. I mean, what am I going to do with a ceramic white and gold statue of a bride and groom for the rest of my life after I've already gotten married? Let's just say... it doesn't quite fit into my decor. But I feel like I have to keep it (...if only for the simple fact that I can't bear to re-gift it and be thought of in the same way I thought of the giver, and it's too nice to throw into the trash can or give to goodwill. What's a girl to do?!).


Unfortunately, I think we do this with the gifts that God gives us. At least I know that I'm WAY guilty of that. Am I only the only one?!

I mean, imagine how the person that gave you that not-so-fantastic gift came over and saw the Christmas sweater they made for you sitting in the garbage cans outside. It would suck, right?!

So when God gives you a gift, it's for a reason. And he doesn't give you a little cushion of gifting in that area just in case you decide to use it... No, he gives it to you so that you can use all of it. He wants you to rock that gift's world! He wants you to wear it out like it's been out of style since the 80s and you're JUST now realizing it. He wants you to because he owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and he'll keep replenishing that gifting over and over and over again.

This gift isn't a box of Girl Scout cookies that you're trying to savor slowly until they start selling them again next year - this is more like the unlimited supply of said girl scout cookies (and can I just take a time out to say that I would be TOTALLY fantastic with the idea of unlimited, year-round girl scout cookies?! I'm just saying...).


And this is where I've been failing lately (with the giftings, not the girl scout cookies). I'm really only using between 40 and 60% of the gifts that God has given me.

Over the past few weeks, I have had the same recurring dream several times. It's not one of those dreams that are warm and fuzzy and then by noon, when you finally get to tell your best bud about it, you're all kinds of fuzzy on the details. It's more like the super vivid dream that you couldn't forget if you WANTED to!

Anywho... back to the dream: I'm standing on a stage and singing. I'm not just singing, I mean I'm SANGIN'! You know the difference... singing is when you stand there are pretty and sing on pitch and only suffice to meet everyone's expectations. It's pretty. People are smiling. The little old ladies in the 2nd row are clapping softly off-beat with you. And then you walk off stage and breathe a sigh of relief that it's over and spend the next few hours over-analyzing the way you "delivered" the song. But SANGIN' is when you just belt it. You put EVERYTHING you've GOT into that song. You sing like the lives of every little baby around the world depends on it. It's like Cristina Aguilera ain't got NOTHING on you when you're singing this song. You're owning that song.


That's the difference.


The most important difference between the two?

When you SANG, he's just totally captivated by the gift that he's given you. He's the proudest father. The one clapping the loudest at your grand finally. He's BEEMING with pride in having given you the PERFECT gift!! He just KNEW that you'd use it this way. He just knew it!! And he couldn't be happier.

God loves your singing. He really does. But when you just sing the song, as happy as he is that you're using that gift he's given you, it's like he's turned to look back as he left the Christmas party at your house, and through that window saw you throwing that sweater that you hate so much into the trash can. Or using it to wipe up the mess you just made when you spilled the 7-layer dip on the kitchen floor as you were cleaning up. You are slapping God in the face and saying "Yeah, it's a cool gift and all, but my fear of humiliation, my fear of what people will think, my worry that people will judge me as a show-off is way more important than the extent of your silly little gift." Because, after all... people are the ones you have to live with everyday, right?! They're the ones you have to answer to when you walk off that stage afterwards...


Right?!



Well, in my dream, I'm just jamming. I am Sangin' His Eye is On the Sparrow. I mean, I am kicking that song's musical butt! And people are being touched by it! They're being given Hope that they hadn't seen in years. Filled with Joy that they hadn't ever felt before. That simple old song that we've all heard a dozen times - it was really meeting people where they were.

All because I was using the gift that God has given me to it's capacity. I was fulfilling a purpose.


God doesn't give a bird wings so that he can walk around flappin' them at each other. He gives them wings so they can fly. That's their purpose, but it can't be met unless they truly use their wings to their fullest ability.

So why are we any different? Why do we laugh at God's "cute" little giftings? They aren't "cute" - they're ordained! They are put there for a reason, and not just to be looked at and imagined.


A few months back, when our church was between Worship leaders, I stepped in, some, and helped lead worship when they needed me. The problem? I was not only TERRIFIED, which isn't a bad thing in itself, but I was still only dabbing my big toe in to see if the water was cold when I would sing. I didn't truly lead people in worship. Heck no - I just sang the main part of the song, like I was some kind of a sing-along worship CD that you play in the car on the way to work in the morning.

Can God use that? Yes. Absolutely. No question. Did he? No doubt. But had I used the gift he had given me to actually LEAD people in worship, we could've experience a level of worship that was on a whole new playing field.

But instead of was worried about saying the wrong thing between songs, so I didn't say anything. I was too nervous that my Sanging would distract people, so I just sang the song like we all knew it.


And that wasn't the point. NONE of that should've mattered. And no matter how many times I was told that people truly need some encouragement in worship and truly need to be led, no matter how much I told myself "You can do this. They need this. YOU need this...", once I got up on stage, I froze. I was worried about the band getting my signals. I was worried about singing the wrong verse and misleading the vocalists that were singing with me. I was frozen in my own anxiety.


I guess what I'm trying to say is that I've been a slacker with the gift God has given me, and I need to get off my butt and start using it the way that he gave it to me, not just the way that I'm comfortable or the way that I always have in the past.

Comfort zones are just that - they're comfortable. But they aren't God-made. They are totally, completely, 100% man-made. And if everyone played it "safe", then no one would ever hear about him. Or feel his love. Or wake up and realize that he has so much more for them than they could ever accomplish within their own strength. But we have GOT to learn to break down those stupid comfortable walls, and stop building them again once things get stormy. We're missing SO MUCH of what he's given us. Why doesn't that keep us up at night? Why doesn't that bother us like it should? Because we're just staying inside of our safe-ness. Comfortable in our cozy little comfort zones... stupid little things.





What gift are hiding behind? What talents have you been given, but are too worried to shine in? In what ways are you a Slacker?