Potter

Tuesday wasn't exactly a great day. There was nothing major that went wrong and a lot of good things happened but it was kind of one of those days. It wasn't until the fourth person asked me if I was ok that I realized I had let the "one of those days" mentality take over. Of course, then I was mad. At myself. After being out of bed for five minutes this morning I knew it was going to be one of those days. I had the opportunity to make it a good day with some bad events rather than a bad day with some good events. And I failed.

At our Tuesday night worship service my friend Brad spoke. Now Brad's a potter so his "speaking" was really giving us a visual of Jeremiah 18. He made a tall jug out of clay and then smashed it. I knew ahead of time he was going to do that, but it was still cool to see all of his hard work smashed. He reformed the exact same clay and made a bowl instead.

Brad: See, this bowl a whole lot better, more practical than the tall, long thing that I didn't really know what it was.
Andy: That’s what they called me in high school.
Katie: Tall, long thing no one really knows what it is?
Amy: Katie, did you get that, too?
Andy: And they called Amy a bowl thing.

Each one of us is different but each one of us is going to be used. Maybe right now I’m in a tall, long shape where I’m stuck in the old way rather than the new form.  That doesn't mean I cannot be used or reformed.  In fact, today is Wednesday and I am the same piece of clay I was on Tuesday, but I am willing to let the Potter shape me in a new way. Are you?

"Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?" Romans 9:21

<>< Katie

"Wait, what's the number for 9-1-1?"

One of the amazing opportunities I have here at school is to help lead youth retreats. Weekend retreats, one-night events, lock-ins, etc. My ministry team and I do them all. This weekend we helped lead a youth ski trip. Can you say fun?!

Here are some highlights:

• Using an ironing board as a sled...
• The Oreo Olympics: What started as a game to get a half-an-Oreo from the forehead to the mouth sans hands turned into "If I flip this whole Oreo from one shoulder to the other shoulder before kicking it, will you catch it in your mouth?"
• "Patrick, I could hearing you giggling in my bed," complained a female adult chaperone. Please, let's all enjoy her misplaced modifier... and then we'll adjust the sentence to say, "From my bed I could hear you laughing, Patrick!"
• I was the only one sitting at the kitchen table in our house. Please note this kitchen table seats at least ten people and all of the other seats were unoccupied. A girl came into the house to dodge a snowball. Well, she was successful... I was not. The snowball hit one chair and one chair only: mine.
• Kevin and Jeanie had never skied before. Brad and I are intermediate skiers. Somehow the two newbies ended up on the lift together while Brad and I were in the next chair. Acrophobia Kevin screamed the whole way!
• [Quite possibly my favorite] We were playing a game called "Body Parts" where two partners are separated and have to run to each other and touch the called body parts. For example, if the caller says, "Nose to toes," partner one's nose goes to partner two's toes. I took full advantage of my role as caller by saying things like, "tongue to ear" but then I got bored and began to take requests. Somewhere in the game bones started appearing, and "That is not your femur." The very last call wasn't mine but someone screamed, "Cranium to femur." Well, the cranium missed...

However, it wasn't about skumping (aka "skiing the humps"... also known as "monguls" or "moguls"). It wasn't about making sure we had enough bananas just in case monkeys attacked in the middle of the night. It wasn't about who can force-feed his partner a cup of soda and blow pop the fastest (without spilling or, worse, puking).

As we were driving back this afternoon, we took a twenty-minute prayer break. No iPods, no books, no conversations, no music, nothing.

I looked out of the bus, noticing the stunning mountains, and started my prayer. Except that'll have to be a different blog! This is me resisting the urge to say "Sundays don't count in Lent" and update again. See you Tuesday!

<>< Katie
PS: If you can tell me what skit the title of this post is from you win fifty-points.

How Katie "Broke" Elizabeth's Finger

My Melodramatic Life Part One: How Katie Broke Elizabeth's Finger

Elizabeth: We were getting out of the car, and Katie slammed the car door into my finger and MURDERED IT! See! It's gushing blood.
[Note the lack of blood]
Elizabeth: It's purple!
[Note the tan finger]
Elizabeth: I can't move my whole hand!
[she says waving to a friend]
Elizabeth: IT HURTS! [Wails in pain] I'm going to DIE!
Katie: Andy, would you look at Liz's finger please. Tell her how long she has to live!
Elizabeth: ANDY! Save ME! My finger is dead! Katie aggressively attacked it with the car door!
[Andy opens his EMS jacket, pulls out a bottle of ibuprofen, and places it ontop of the "purple" finger]
Andy: There you go.
Elizabeth: [Sigh of relief] That's better.
Andy: Now what happened?
Katie: She got in a fight with the car door.
Elizabeth: NO! Katie assulted me with Amy's car door! She slammed my finger into it and KILLED it! I'm dying!
Katie: We were fighting over shot-gun...
Andy: The two of you fighing over shot-gun? NEVER!
Katie: Yeah, well, I won for the first time in my life only because you weren't there to push me out of the way! Anyway, Liz isn't used to sitting in the backseat, so when she got out of the car she was a little too close...
Elizabeth: I was just excited to get here! I was running! And now it hurts! I'm DYING!
Katie: I opened the door and she slammed her finger into it.
Andy: So, Liz, you slammed into Amy's car door with your finger; Katie didn't slam the car door ON your finger.
Katie: Thank you!
Elizabeth: She MURDERED IT! Katie's a murderer! An Ax-murderer!
Amy: Katie, you have to walk back to our apartment because I need to take Elizabeth to the hospital. But not the close hospital, the far hospital because that's where Jo works and therefore it's the best.
Andy: I'll drive! I can get there real fast!
Katie: Yeah, in your car or in your ambulence?
Elizabeth: IT HURTS!! The medicine didn't help, Andy. Kiss it. That's what Katie did! Brad tried to kiss it, but he really just licked it. That didn't help! AHHH!!
Andy: Let me see.
Elizabeth: Don't TOUCH it!
Andy: How are you going to get better if no one can touch it?
Elizabeth: [moaning] I don't know.
Amy: We'll have to sign your cast.
Elizabeth: [Smile] Ok! [Viciously] But NOT Katie! Katie can't get anywhere near it!
Andy: They wouldn't put a cast on your finger. They'd splint it. I'm trained to handle that. If you broke your femur--which is very dangerous, so please don't do it--I am trained to handle that, too.
Katie: Last time I took biology I learned the femur is not in the finger.
Andy: Splint the femur; splint the finger. Same idea.
Adam: Liz, are you ok?
Elizabeth: KATIE KILLED ME!
Katie: Here we go again.
Elizabeth: She brutally slammed the car door into my finger...
Katie: But Andy put the closed bottle of ibuprofen on it, so we're good now.
Adam: Oh, ok. Good. I'm glad Andy were there to help.
Elizabeth: He WASN'T! He wasn't there and I was gushing blood EVERYWHERE! Worse than the other finger I cut while shaving this morning!
Katie: Liz, these are fingers. You only get ten! A new endangered species: Liz's fingers.
Elizabeth: AHHH!!! It's been a rough day for my appendages!

If she's lucky, she might live..
<>< Katie