Preaching to myself

My prayer life has been in the dumps this past week. I'm a single dad for 8 days while my wife is away working at a church camp. The kids have been in a camp themselves in the morning, which I thought would allow me to get work done. Which it has. But, like an idiot, I failed to recognize that a half day is not enough time to get in a full days worth of work. I'm not sure how I missed that one, but miss it I did. If I'd just been paying attention, I could have either front-loaded or just plain off-loaded a lot of things and this week would have been a snap. But I didn't, and as a result I've been running around like a lunatic trying to be a parent most of the day and still get a full weeks worth of work in.

Then I got the water bill.

It seems that our water piping from the street to the house blew a hole. How big? We lost 90 gallons in 60 minutes the other day. When I told the plumber that, he winced. That's never a good sign. I'm not sure how there's even any water getting to the house, but there was. Since we're in a drought and this wasted water was costing us a lot of money, I immediately turned the water off at the street except when absolutely necessary. Since then, it's been buckets and pitchers. So on top of the lunacy of single parenting and a full time job all at once, this week I've had the added lunacy of filling toilets with buckets and having to get major plumbing work done.

All of that means that I just have not taken the time to pray. Normally, I probably would have said "haven't had the time to pray," but that's not true. I did have time. I could have found 10, 15, even 30 minutes to pray. I just chose not to. I chose to let the strain and anxiety get to me. The neat thing is how I realized that. I realized it while writing my sermon for this week, which is about (you're gonna love this) getting rid of the distractions so we can get a reading from the true GPS: God's Positioning System.

My goal with each sermon is to have it be really meaningful to just one person. One person for whom it touches their soul. I figure if I can do that, I've done well. This week, that person is me. Everyone else may think the sermon stinks for all I know, but I sure learned something, and that's pretty cool.

The Perils of Having a Coffee Shop Office

I have two offices. The first is Bagel Boys cafe, which is a bagel shop but also a coffee house. The second is a Starbucks. Most of the time it's great. They're safe places where folks can come and meet me, they're convenient, they're cheap, and they have free wi-fi so I can work when I'm not meeting new people or talking with whoever. Last night, though, I discovered a major downside to having a 'coffee shop office'.

Caffeine.

Last night at 8 pm at Starbucks I met with a couple about their wedding. Nice folks, had a great time. They offered to get me a drink, which was very kind, so I got a 'Decaf Mint Chocolate Chip Light'. It was a great drink, a great night, and afterwards I went home to relax and unwind. I tried, and I tried, and I just couldn't do either. I went to bed late, around 11, thinking that if I just got in bed I'd fall asleep. After 45 minutes of counting sheep, I suddenly realized what had happened. They didn't put the 'de' in my 'decaf'. I'd been given a full on, caffeinated beverage.

Many of you wouldn't even notice. Most Americans treat caffeine as the sixth (and most important) food group. It's the fuel of the American economy. Take away oil and we'll manage. Take away caffeine and it's "Day of the Dead." But not me. I don't drink too much caffeine, and when I do have a latte or something else that's got a lot of caffeine it tends to juice me up for awhile. It was about 2:30 before I got to sleep last night. Thankfully, God has blessed us with the Internet and stupid computer games to pass the time. Otherwise I would have gone insane staring at the ceiling for hours. Even though shooting aliens was fun, I would have much rather been asleep.

The next time I go to Starbucks at night, I'm getting water. Not 'vitamin water'. Not 'energy water' or any other new clever creations scientists have made from good ol' H20. Just a bottle of plain, ordinary water. Because even though I like where I go to the office, I definitely do not want to take the office home with me. Not like that, anyway.

Fog

I did not realize until after my surgery that I've been in a fog for about two months. Ever since I first went to the dermatologist and looked through that brochure and realized I probably had skin cancer, I've just been in a daze. I haven't been thinking clearly, haven't been thinking through things very well, and was just generally befuddled. It reminds me of when we had our first child and I learned what the words 'sleep deprivation' really mean.

I'm surprised by how dazed I was. It wasn't that big a deal. Yes, it was cancer, but if you're gonna get cancer, this is the one to get. The surgery wasn't fun, but I've seen a lot worse. The recovery stunk, but like everything else (the pain, the stitches, etc.) it could have been worse. Heck, I feel like calling myself a cancer survivor is an insult to actual cancer survivors! So why the fog?

No clue. Could be the brush with my own mortality, just the unknown, subliminal fear, who knows. I don't have the faintest idea. What I do know is that I'm awake now, and ready to get my brain back into my work. For somebody without a brain, I think I've been doing fairly well. I don't seem to have done anything colossally stupid, and those who've known me for awhile and have seen some of my stupider moments will probably breath a sigh of relief at that. I'm certainly relieved. Still, it is nice to have my brain back online.

Oh- and worship attendance has actually gone up so far in summer. So I get skin cancer, lose my brain, summer starts, and attendance goes up. That's the wild, whacky world of church planting for you!