How we paid our electricity bill this month

Today was an adventure into a life I never really expected for myself. Today, I was a preacher's wife.

In order to pick up a little extra money to pay the electricity bill, BJ and I travels to Oplin were BJ received fifty dollars to lead singing and a hundred dollars to preach. BJ was a little nervous about the whole affair because it had been a few years since he had done either. However, we got what we didn't expect: one of the most fulfilling Sundays in recent memory.

To begin with, BJ's sermon was amazing. And, no, I am not just saying that because I'm his wife. To proove this, I'm going to tell a brief summary of the sermon. He started by reading Jer. 18 about the potter and the clay. He then went on to talk about the harsh process that clay must endure in the hands of the potter in order to be formed into the final vessal. He then moved to the Beatitudes and talked about how God's version of blessedness is far different from our Americanized version. In the end, BJ tied this all together by basically saying that we come to the potter expecting gentleness and love and blessing. And we do indeed get all of these things. But it is not how we expect it. The process is disorienting at times, and at the end, we aren't necessarily what we planned to be formed into.

So there you have it. I pretty decent sermon. But I haven't told you my favorite part. It happens to also be my favorite part of my husband. The sermon was personal, just like BJ always is. What others might keep secret, he confesses openly, often in ways I don't know what to do with. So my favorite part of the sermon was this:

"If we’re going to take the Beatitudes seriously, and I think we should, than God may very well be shaping us into a people we would not have chosen to be. Kalyn and I have been having a rough time lately when it comes to finances. I recently graduated with my master’s degree, and accumulated $40k debt in the process. Neither Kalyn nor I have been able to find good jobs. Our bills and loan payments far exceed our monthly income (As an aside, Kalyn and I wanted to thank you for paying our electric bill). I’ve been looking for good jobs since January, only to be turned down for every job I’ve applied for. I don’t like it, and many times I have wondered if God is punishing me for something.
"But when I read, 'Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,' I have to wonder if God is trying to show me what it’s like to be a part of his reality, what it’s really like to live in the Kingdom of Heaven. Paul tells us to carry our cross, as painful as that might be, but that implies choice, and I have very little choice in being practically unemployed. No, maybe what I’m experiencing is not the weight of the cross, but the life of one who is kneeling in the shadow of the cross. Maybe I’m experiencing the pain of being shaped by God."

When BJ said this, he teared up a bit. And at the end of the service, the people were touched. They prayed for us, and thanked BJ for a wonderful sermon.

After church we went out to eat with a couple in their eighties. This couple had stories of all sorts of trials in their lives. Each one's first spouse had left them for others. The man, Doug, was bi-polar and has endured periods of depression I can not begin to fathom. His wife, Ruth, lost her son when he was twenty-five years old, and her ex-husband tried to kill her once. And yet, through all of this, they have kept faith. And they have kept love. At the end of a two hour conversation, they gave BJ and I a check for two hundred dollars asking only that we do the same for someone down the road. I am left speachless and humbled.