Faint, Intimidate, Brunch and Such

This morning something very unusual happened in the 9:10 service. Maybe unusual is not the correct word, but it was déjà vu only this time I experienced it, not Lisa P. Let me give you a bit of history. Last year about this time, Lisa texted me from the 9:10 service that someone had fainted in the choir loft. The person fell forward and as she did so, the sopranos, not known to be a hardy group, caught her as she tumbled forward. As Lisa watched this happen from the back of the worship center, she immediately stepped out into the aisle as if she would rush onto the stage and help. Lisa and I have had quite a few giggles over this. We are not laughing about the lady fainting; we laugh because Lisa’s reaction was to step in and determined to act from all the way in the back of the church. The cause of the fainting spell was determined that the lady wore wool when the temperatures outside dictated lighter apparel.

Fast forward to this morning. It is Roy’s Sunday to pray under the altar at the 9:10 service. So I find a seat in a back section of the worship center. As we are singing hymns, I am looking across the choir loft. I know Peggy is in Shreveport this weekend, so I begin to look for other friends who are sitting in the loft. Altos are all in place and I begin checking on the soprano section. I always look for the fainter every Sunday. (I do not want to use her name) She is not in her regular place, but I find her…she is sitting down, fanning herself in the choir loft while the rest of the choir is standing. And just as Lisa had seen her do last year, this lady falls over in a dead faint, only this time instead of going forward, she just lays over to her left. In that moment, I jumped into the aisle as if I were going to run up to the stage and help. The giggles hit me as I returned to my place, remembering Lisa’s reaction to the same incident. The volunteer medical response team and appointed church staff took over the situation in a highly organized, excellent and effective manner. The lady had arm surgery on Friday and maybe had rushed her recovery to be in her place…in the loft.

Yesterday, I was coming home from the Play Grocery Store. I had a 250 E Point coupon to turn in for the bonus points and I wanted to get something special for dinner. I will take a side step for a second. Roy works really hard and during the week he can be in back to back meetings all day long. So the normal stuff he needs to take care of gets pushed to Saturdays. On top of that, he is hiring more staff as his area continues to develop and expand. Ok back to the Play Grocery store trip. I wanted to get something really good and special for dinner. I picked up some tilapia covered in a sauce with pumpkin seeds on top. For a veggie, it was acorn squash. For dessert, hand painted Valentine cookies and ice cream. Since the day was beautiful, I had the top down as I drove home. Here is the thing, I did not pull out in front of anyone, I was not speeding, I hadn’t acted foolishly or recklessly or done some random thing, but I had a policeman begin to follow me. He would stay back a bit and then come up almost on my bumper. He turned when I did and I thought, he must be going to the Mounted Police Patrol Padlock located across the street from the Houstonian. As we approached the stop sign, he pulled up next to me. I knew he was looking at me, but I did not make eye contact. I checked to see if anyone was at the stop sign to the left…no, so I proceeded. He pulled in behind me again. We stopped at the light and he kept inching up very close to my bumper again. It wasn’t that I was going so slowly and he couldn’t get around, it seemed to be some act of intimidation. Green light and I begin on my way and I approach the entrance to our condo parking lot. So, I signal and turn. He stops his car in the middle of the street and watches me as I drive in and then gunned his motor and went on down the street. It was as if he was intimidating me into making a mistake in order to pull me over. I was so conscious of his activity, I almost forgot to do just normal driving things. Pulling in our assigned space, I called Roy to tell him all about it. He listened and said it is intimidation. Let it go. It was unnerving and as I thought about it later, I knew the Lord spoke in my heart that our enemy does the very same thing. If we aren’t walking on the wrong path, he makes his presence known to keep us from continuing on God’s path or doing right. We get nervous and fearful to walk in God’s best way for us. Don’t let the enemy deceive you into a season of inactivity.

Before Roy went into the office today, we went out for brunch. We loves us some brunch. One of our favorite Simpson episodes has a line we have oft repeated to each other… “It’s not exactly breakfast and it’s not lunch but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. You don’t get exactly what you want, but you get a good meal.” Brunch was awesome and efficient! You are eating two meals at one sitting. For the most part we chose healthy options except I chose several biscuits and Roy chose cinnamon rolls and then he had dessert. Oh baby, we brunched it up today.

This weekend I did get one little project taken care of. Let’s just say I have more things for the Mission Training Center. I now have one empty dresser drawer and I am deciding what will go in it. I am more about having space these days.

Guess this is what happens when I don’t have time to blog during the week, I go on over load on the weekend. Feel free to use this post as a sleep aid and bore you into snore land. Remember, if you are going to faint; don’t faint around Lisa and me. We will only respond with a step forward only to take two steps back from where we came from.

Since spell check is not working, I am writing in Word then copy and pasting it into blogger.