I really have been out of touch with my own blog!! Yesterday after I posted about convention, I was reading some of my prior posts and discovered I had written a similar analogy last year about convention! So, I chuckled at myself, hung my head in embarrassment lest someone reading would remember, but then, oh, well, repitition helps us learn anyways!!
Today's agenda is to mix up cookie dough and freeze it. I will bake them next week for Newry. It seems really muggy hot this morning, but I had better get off the computer and get started!!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Ah, Convention--Before, During, and After
A dear friend told me at convention that she missed my blog, so I decided I needed to put some effort into posting to try to lend some cheer and encouragement to others!
We have just returned from a rich four days at Freedom convention and look forward to going to Newry, too. So, what is convention like? What does it do for us? How is it that we are drawn there, year after year?
Days spent at convention are the very best days of the year for me/us. After I turned 50 I figured out one day that I have probably spent a year of my life in convention meetings. It was a very comforting, cheerful thought to me!!
You may chuckle some at my analogies of what convention is like, but if convention has been your experience you will probably nod your head, too!
One of the things I enjoy doing in my kitchen is mixing up a batch of buns--some have called them the Grady buns, made famous in the family by Martha and Jane before I even married into the family. The recipe calls for about 15 cups of flour, and that is the last thing you stir into the ingredients. You stir and stir, and then you get to the point where you put flour on a clean counter, and dump the dough on top of it. It is a sticky, gooey mess. You add some flour on top of it. You put your hands into it, and they get sticky, gooey, and messy. You begin to knead and after a bit, you get into a rythym of it, and the dough gets nicer and nicer. Soon it is no longer sticky, but smooth and a joy to knead. Then you plop that beautiful dough into a greased bowl to rise.
Convention is like that process to me. It doesn't seem to matter whether the year preceeding convention has been fairly smooth or if it has been a rough one--when it comes to convention time, I feel like that ooey-gooey sticky mess, dumped out and ready for God to work on. And, meeting by meeting, things come together with lots of comfort and fresh hope. God's hand has been good upon us and we are glad for his hand working on us to get our priorities lined up again.
Going to convention is like going to a huge grocery store. God's provision for us is far grander than we can ever anticipate or imagine. We know the wisdom of beginning with an empty cart, and strive to go emptied of self. We begin to push our cart in the store, and God loads it up for us. "You need this, Alma. Better get some more of this, I think you are running out at home." And on and on we go through the store.
Meeting by meeting, our cart is filling up. By the time the four days are coming to a close, the cart is filled to the point where we wonder whether it can possibly hold anything more. Still, God piles more on. With great effort, we push the cart to the door (there are no check-outs at convention, it has all been bought and paid for), load it up and make the journey home.
Our cart is so full, we can hardly remember what is in it. But as we get home, we unload it and examine those things more closely and read the Bible verses that meant so much to us when we were at convention. We sort out our treasures. It comforts us to have those things now in our possesion where we can make such good use of them.
And, once again, we rejoice because we have had the experience written about in Luke 24:32 "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?"
We have just returned from a rich four days at Freedom convention and look forward to going to Newry, too. So, what is convention like? What does it do for us? How is it that we are drawn there, year after year?
Days spent at convention are the very best days of the year for me/us. After I turned 50 I figured out one day that I have probably spent a year of my life in convention meetings. It was a very comforting, cheerful thought to me!!
You may chuckle some at my analogies of what convention is like, but if convention has been your experience you will probably nod your head, too!
One of the things I enjoy doing in my kitchen is mixing up a batch of buns--some have called them the Grady buns, made famous in the family by Martha and Jane before I even married into the family. The recipe calls for about 15 cups of flour, and that is the last thing you stir into the ingredients. You stir and stir, and then you get to the point where you put flour on a clean counter, and dump the dough on top of it. It is a sticky, gooey mess. You add some flour on top of it. You put your hands into it, and they get sticky, gooey, and messy. You begin to knead and after a bit, you get into a rythym of it, and the dough gets nicer and nicer. Soon it is no longer sticky, but smooth and a joy to knead. Then you plop that beautiful dough into a greased bowl to rise.
Convention is like that process to me. It doesn't seem to matter whether the year preceeding convention has been fairly smooth or if it has been a rough one--when it comes to convention time, I feel like that ooey-gooey sticky mess, dumped out and ready for God to work on. And, meeting by meeting, things come together with lots of comfort and fresh hope. God's hand has been good upon us and we are glad for his hand working on us to get our priorities lined up again.
Going to convention is like going to a huge grocery store. God's provision for us is far grander than we can ever anticipate or imagine. We know the wisdom of beginning with an empty cart, and strive to go emptied of self. We begin to push our cart in the store, and God loads it up for us. "You need this, Alma. Better get some more of this, I think you are running out at home." And on and on we go through the store.
Meeting by meeting, our cart is filling up. By the time the four days are coming to a close, the cart is filled to the point where we wonder whether it can possibly hold anything more. Still, God piles more on. With great effort, we push the cart to the door (there are no check-outs at convention, it has all been bought and paid for), load it up and make the journey home.
Our cart is so full, we can hardly remember what is in it. But as we get home, we unload it and examine those things more closely and read the Bible verses that meant so much to us when we were at convention. We sort out our treasures. It comforts us to have those things now in our possesion where we can make such good use of them.
And, once again, we rejoice because we have had the experience written about in Luke 24:32 "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?"
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