We Are All that and a Carpet Showroom Too!

In an earlier post I wrote about my problem in acting well behaved in Sunday School, I mean Sunday Bible Study, when the substitute teaching is difficult for me to listen to. It is just a style issue. I am the type that has to have a story to go with the lesson for me to remember the verse and the application. Pastor Gregg is so good in using that style. Well, I had planned to miss Sunday School on a sabbatical of my own at least for the month of July, but Roy wouldn't miss Sunday School 3 weeks in a row, so I kind of was forced to go to class. So happy that Marcia was there to make the hour fun. I also have to give a little shout out to Becky and Belinda for making class fun and bearable for me.


For the most part, the teacher just read her lesson to us. Don't get me wrong, I love to be read to. It is one of my all time favorite things even as an adult for someone to read out loud a story. You can listen and imagine the scenes and characters as a story is read, but a lesson...with most of the verses in the hard part of Romans??? Not a good thing. The sad part actually in her reading the lesson is that, we don't hear her voice. No, we are not deaf, but her personal voice, a voice that engages us. The main time she got my attention is when she talked about her job and some of the things she had learned from it. She was off the paper and talking to us, it was interesting and a connection was made for that all too brief moment. For goodness sake, it was a story...her only one and I was so totally with her in those few minutes. If she would teach like that for the majority of her lesson, she wouldn't have so many looking off in the distance and their eyes would be glued upon her. I would be her biggest supporter and fan.


Another thought I had this morning at church, how do I overcome or respond to someone who absolutely dislikes and has it out for me? They have it out for me in an underhanded, not out there in the open kind of way. The answer for me is, to walk in God's love toward that person of course, but I have to tell you it is so dang hard. Walking in God's love toward those who have no use for you is spiritual warfare. Forget about it, walking in God's love is just plain hard even when you totally love and like the person. That is why we have to ask Him to do that loving in us. We humanly don't have it in us to do. I look so much to King David for wisdom because he had a Saul in his life before he became a king, he had opportunities to strike Saul when we was the weakest, but David didn't do it. I don't have a spear or a sword to use against my Saul, my Sauletta, but a quick wit and a tendency to walk too close to my fearless zone would be my weapons of choice. That is if I chose to use them instead of doing the I Corinthian 13 thing. It has become easier not to resort to quick, funny but probably hurtful words. There are those times I am so tempted, but I hear my therapist Cheryl in the back of my mind saying, do you have energy to give to this? Of course I don't but sometimes it is worth it because it amuses me. Amusement aside, looks like I have a lot of reading and review to do. Time to hit I John and the I Corinthians 13 verses again to walk in God's provision of love.


One Lord, one faith, one baptism, but oh so many selections of carpet styles at church. I don't believe I have ever seen so many types and styles of carpeting! I don't usually get so overwhelmed by things like this...but I think First Baptist is really just the show room for Carpet Giant and Carpet World. We must have a deal and being a showroom for all the different styles of carpeting and being a showroom might just be one relevant way to help with the deficit in the budget. I don't even have all the different styles here, but there will be a part 2 post soon.

This is the remaining old style red carpeting of the 70's in the South entrance by the CLC. The red squares are the original and the squiggly carpet pattern is the 80's addition. Look at all those stains, I bet there is an interesting story to go with each and every one of them.


This is one place where the old meets the new. I think all the stairs in the church are this grayish pattern. The stairs located next to the Worship Center had the design as the carpet in the lobby. I think we stopped counting all the crash and burn incidents we had as the optical illusion created by the pattern made people mis-step all the time. Someone had the brilliant idea of putting these rubber and metal strips on the edge of the stairs. Those strips only provided extra lift and launch to those who still navigated the stairs with the optical illusion of carpet and stair when there really was nothing but air.



This is the carpeting on the first floor of the gym area in the CLC. It was added when we were having church in the gym last summer. If you open the side door to the CLC and straddle the old squiggly red carpet and this blue patchwork design, the rumor is you feel like you are riding the waves on a sailboat. The squiggly design just looks like what you might throw up if you are seasick.
This hall is on the second floor. It is blue with brown/tan inserts but to the side is the gray stairway carpeting. I know...anyway, I think this carpeting style would be great for team building sessions. Say you want to play flag football, the first down markers are already there to mark progress.

This is the up close view of the blue next to the grayish stairway carpeting. You notice these two colors and when you open the doors to the worship center, you have another different style. I believe all these different colors that seem to come in patterns of three are symbolic of the Trinity. OK, that's not true, but I thought I would spiritualize the carpeting choice.

I haven't even shown you the carpet in the room formerly known as the Green Room and is now known as the Reception Room. I personally call it Marriott Ballroom B. If you posses a vivid imagination, you can find all kinds of things in that carpet design. My favorite is the rabbits.

I have been blogging from Roy's office downtown. There surely is a post in the offerings about downtown on a Sunday afternoon. I took pictures...! :)