Party Time!

This has been quite possibly the busiest week for us thus far with our church brining in candidates for the new associate pastor position...and with our first upcoming confirmation on Sunday. Last night was the first of our parties for our confirmands...or so we thought. We walk into the house and see them working on a big board with the words "First Confirmation Class." One of our small group leaders was making it, and although we thought it was kind of weird to display that in the church narthex since it wasn't the Church's first confirmation class, we didn't want to discourage her creativity or effort. So we didn't say anything. So we played lots of games (including Psychiatrist) with the kids and had a ball watching the video of all of the pictures from the year that Stacey (the aforementioned small group leader) assembled for us. Then they bring out a present. I thought it was from the kid who brought it out. It wasn't quite until I peeked inside that we realized it was from all of them. Now...I should mention that the business of the week did have us quite...well, frazzled, to say the least...but we also had a very emotionally tough week too, which made our "frazzlement" even worse. We have been questioning God's reason for putting us here and feeling ineffective. God must have heard our laments and seen our need for encouragement! Inside the bag were gift certificates to FIVE restaurants near the church (and some of our confirmation kids' houses...for babysitting!). Jon and I were just floored. I think our mouths were hanging open partly because we were totally surprised by their gift but mostly because in that instant we saw God's goodness in our lives. He totally provided for our need at that moment! So the rest of the night went on until about 10...and right as we were sending the last kid off, through conversation with our small group leaders, Steve and Stacey, did we realize that the party wasn't for Steve's daughter, Emma at all. It was for us! Which floored us even more! They apologized for not having the board done before we got there...and for not being sneaky enough with the money from the kids. Can I just admit that we were clueless? We had NO idea what was going on. But it was kind of cool that we went home with big smiles plastered on our faces, just glowing in the warmth of God's love for us that night.