New Update

Oh man, I lose points for failing to update my blog.

Here’s a recap of what has happened over the last 13 days.

On Thursday August 5, our supervisor, Todd, had a “present” for us. He brought us a new 4^th register. So, rather than saying, “I’m sorry, I’m not a register, I’m a wrapper,” we now must actually help customers. It is supposed to allow us to help more customers, but really, we help the same number because we have to wrap our own jams and jellies and other fragile stuff. And registers 2 and 4 share a credit card machine, so that gets a little messed up at times too. Over all though, I guess it is okay.. Customers seem to like it.

Friday August 6.

Today was criticize everything day. When we take breaks, how we do our shipment..EVERYTHING. Todd was back and was on our cases about everything. It led to the beginning of A LOT of tension in the store, and us not looking forward to Todd coming. Not only were tensions running high in the store, but in the dorms. This day was the day when it was said that there could be no more parties in the dorms because people weren’t cleaning up… Let me tell you about how well that is working… Its not.

Saturday August 7

Today marked the end of the busiest week our company has ever had in any shop. We did 8.5 days of sales in 7 days at our shop. We broke the record by a half day. IT was intensely busy all day.

Sunday August 8.

ITS SUNDAY. That means, service, brunch, nap, nap, snack, nap, service, dinner and friends! What a perfect Sunday.

Monday August 9.

Yey! Popover Monday. If you don’t know what popover Monday is, it is when Greg (a supervisor at work who goes to Rutgers) and I eat popovers on Monday at 815. It is the highlite of our week. And usually when we close things are amazing and we have fun, eventful nights..

Wednesday August 11.

Evidently, this day was magical. Or that’s what I have written on my schedule.. I’m not sure why I wrote that on my schedule, but okay.. This was also the day when the Bluders came and saved me from the chaos of work for a while! Yey bluders! (PS did you guys get Harbor Bars? I thought of that while I was eating one today.) Or maybe they came on the 10^th, and I was off on the 11^th and that’s why it was amazing. I know why! I did 4 loads of laundry, for free, went on the lighthouse boat tour, got a harbor bar, talked to some people on the phone, and got to watch TV. .Is it sad that watching TV made me happy?

Thursday August 12.

Um, well. This day was drama filled at work, but I’m not going there. I talked to a lady on the phone that was here 3 years and just wanted to tell me how much she loved everything. Yes, it was interesting. Yes, I actually listened.

Friday August 13.

I have a new number as of this day. My new favorite number is 1902124. Greg and I will play the lottery with this number.. Well, actually the number is 19,021.24 and it represents the amount of money we did that day. It was the busiest day in the history of the company at our store. And greg and I were there for it and helped us get to that amount. Without us, we would have been at $18,900.

Saturday August 14.

Today marked the day that we did 1000 dollars less than we needed to do to beat our busiest week ever. Tonight was stressful, but also the night that people in our shopped realized that God answers prayers, just not in the most convenient ways. A few of us had been praying that all the drama in the shop would go away, or subdue. We were sick of it, and couldn’t deal with it. One girl in particular was causing about 95% of the drama, and she called tonight to say there was a family emergency and would be leaving and not returning. We hate to see her go because that leaves us a person short and she was a good worker, yet at the same time, we are willing to say goodbye because it means no more drama or name calling and work will be a better place for us all.

Sunday August 15.

I gave another message on this day, then went into work cause we were short staffed. We got people to cover and I went and napped. J (see message below.)

Monday August 16.

Guess what? It was another Popover Monday!!!!!! I worked 1030-10 and Greg and my friend Barbara (the lady who spent 680ish dollars on August 2) called today and spent another 90 bucks. So, Greg and I wrote her letters and shipped the CDs. (Yes, we gave her free shipping)

Tuesday August 17.

On this day, I went to breakfast in town with Champ, Scott, Heidi, Lindsay and Nikki. Then I drove up to schoodic point/peninsula for a while, hit up the Verizon store, grabbed lunch at Wendys, got a harbor bar, cleaned out my car, took a nap, went to our managers house for dinner and then to an Agitha Christy play called, “Murder on the Nile”!

And, I’ll be at school 3 weeks from today! It seems so far away though!

I want to welcome you all to this morning service. Today, I want to talk with you about something that God has been laying on my heart the last couple of weeks. This week has been a particularly hard week for me. I work at the Jordan Pond Gift Shop and the past week is traditionally one of the busiest weeks of the season for shops in town. Everyone’s tensions were running high and made work extra stressful. As I checked my email this week, every time I logged on, I had a new message from someone at school asking for a form that I hadn’t filled out. Or asking me to pick up extra hours at work. I had emails about housing and emails about internships. Everything that had to be figured out before I return to school in a few weeks. My week went on and everyday something else came up that started to weigh down on me. While I was dealing with everything this week, I put God on the back burner in my head. I had it in my head that I could face everything alone and I didn’t need help from anyone. But, growing up, I was always told that God needed to be the center of my life, and turning to him would, in general, make everything okay. It’s one of those hard things to remember in times of stress.

At one point this week, I was sitting at a friend’s house in town and saw her bible sitting out. I felt myself sitting there and needing to open it, I decided to flip through it. As I picked it up, I found myself flipping, naturally, to the page with a bookmark in it. The bookmark was one of those cartoon-ish kids’ bookmarks and had a house on a rock and said something along the lines of building your life on the rock of Christ. Our scripture reading from today tells us that God is our Rock, and the strength of our salvation. As I thought about this week and everything that was weighing down on me, I realized that when my life is centered in Christ, everything is a lot easier to handle. I realized that when I left things in God’s hand and trusted that God would take care of everything, life was a lot easier. I decided that worrying and stressing over everything this week wasn’t going to make things easier, but giving it all up to God may help my mood. I began to open my bible and found myself turning to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. A few verses stuck out to me from the whole sermon. Matthew 7:24-27 reads: “24 Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rains came, and the streams rose. The winds blew and beat against the house; yet it did not fail because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against the house. And it fell with a great crash.”

I began to think about how life is like building a house. To build a house, you need a strong foundation. If we build our lives on a firm foundation, Christ, than we are able to stand firm and stand strong through times of trials in our lives. But if we build our lives on a less stable foundation, then when the winds and hard times come, we fall down. I could feel God pulling at my heart to give all my troubles up to him. I could feel him saying to me, “Let it go. Concentrate on work and let me do the rest.” Psalm 18:1-2 tells us that the LORD is our rock, our strength and shield. He will protect us from everything and by building our lives on him, we can stand strong. When I started trusting God with things this week, and not worrying about everything everyone wanted me to do, my week turned around.

As I began to write this message, I started looking through my bible for any additional resources I may have collected over the years to help me talk about God as our Rock. I didn’t find anything. Feeling dejected, I decided to check my email, and even knowing it would probably cause stress. Maybe there was something there I thought that someone had sent that I had looked over. I pulled up a recent daily devotional that I was subscribed to and read it. They were talking about how life is like a tree. “A tree,” I thought? “I thought life was like building a house?” As I thought about that statement, I decided that we really can learn a lot from trees. The devotion started with something that some ancient rabbis thought was similar to what Jesus said in Matthew 7:24. The rabbis said, “The man whose knowledge exceeds his works, to whom is he like? He is like a tree which had many branches, and only a few roots; and, when the stormy winds came, it was plucked up and eradicated. But he whose good works are greater than his knowledge, to what is he like? He is like a tree which had few branches, and many roots; so that all the winds of heaven could not move it from its place.”

I thought about how trees are flexible and can bend and move when a storm comes. As I hiked around this week, I wondered why not every tree fell during a storm. As I studied more trees, I noticed that the ones that were still standing were the ones with strong roots. And here I was again, thinking about the roots that things are built on. The roots of a tree are like the foundation a house is built on. Everything goes back to focusing on what you are built or made on. It goes back to focusing on the roots. If you have done any hiking in the park, or biking on the carriage roads, you’ve probably noticed some trees that have fallen down. Whatever the reasons are for their falling, one thing is for sure: their root system could no longer support their body above ground. They become, like the rabbi said, a tree with too many branches and too few roots. And down the trees come with the help of a storm, or simply because they have become too weak. A tree with a strong enough and broad enough root system will always be able to support the body of a tree. In the same way, a person with a strong enough life in Christ will always be able to handle whatever comes their way.

In the two passages I have referenced today, Psalm 18:1-2 and Matthew 7:24-27, David and Jesus (The Psalm was a Psalm of David) were talking about essentially, having a strong root system; a strong foundation upon which to establish one’s life. In singing or praying this Psalm, David was re-establishing his foundation on God and strengthening his root system. When Jesus finished his sermon on the mount, he was letting people know that acting upon what he taught was the way to spread their root system so that their lives would not topple over. For a simple illustration, think of a sequoia tree. Sequoia trees are found out west and are enormous. They are the largest trees in the world and some even have bark 4 feet thick. Some of them are even so big you can drive your car through them! But many of these trees fall over and die because they have a shallow root system. They are big on the outside, but their foundation is shallow. When Jesus talks about building houses on the rock, he is referring to the sustaining & protecting coverage of his Father. When we are outside the father’s coverage, we are susceptible to destruction by the elements: the rains of life, the flood waters of temptation, and the winds of spiritual conflict that we don’t even see.

So when life seems rough, like this last week has in my life, all we need to remember is that root system on which we have grown. God is my anchor and even when I feel like I’m toppling over because life is so stressful, God is anchoring me to him and will not let my life crumble. There are times in life when we may want to put God on the back burner in life, but we must remember that he is the one keeping us from toppling over and putting him on the back burner may weaken our roots. He is our Rock, our strength and our salvation. By accepting God into our lives, we establish that root system and it continues to grow with us as we grow in our life with Christ. I want to encourage you this week to take a look at your root system. And wrap your thoughts around the rock so that our lives are anchored on the only thing that will keep us from toppling over like the trees with too many branches.