Dig Deep. (A post about frozen yogurt, cookies, and God.)

Today I’m writing because I was inspired by frozen yogurt. 
 

Well...maybe God inspired me through frozen yogurt....


A couple of weeks ago I attended Spin at Sharptown Church. Spin is a group for kids in 5th and 6th grade. It’s much like a youth group except a little more crazy and unpredictable.

For instance, at the end of Spin, what was supposed to be an organized game turned out into frisbees, footballs, and big spongy balls being thrown everywhere. It was a huge game of catch with multiple objects, but not very many people were catching the items. Anyway, I had a blast. Organized chaos is one of my top favorite things as long as I’m not in charge... which is why I loved it! (I do not want to be the party pooper!)

Once all the chaos was over, we got into lesson time with the kids. One of the leaders asked the question, “What do you imagine God to look like?” 

One kid said a guy dressed in all white...

 (I imagine just like this! haha^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^)

One said praying hands amongst clouds...

And then one girl said a cookie...

                             (If God were to be a cookie, he would most likely have green sun glasses on.)

Everyone immediately asked her why? I would assume because no one else has ever thought of God as a cookie before! 

She went on to say something like... "everyone likes cookies because they taste good and everyone loves God because He is good.”

I can totally understand why a girl her age might think that everyone loves God. I’m sure I thought that too when I was her age. While we know God is good, we also know that the number of people who don’t love God outnumber the people who do love God. 

Then, in my head, I started listing reasons why people do not love or believe in God. 
I came up with things like:

- Unexpected death of a loved one
- Disease
- Financial instability
- Tragedy
- Natural disasters
- Hatred
- Family circumstances
- Abuse
- Debt
- Other: __________________

These are all terrible things that may leave some people asking the question “If there is a God who actually loves and cares for us, why would he let bad things happen?” Often the people asking these questions go to other people searching for answers, and listen with closed hearts and minds when an answer regarding the existence of a god is given.  (This may not always be the case, but sometimes it is!) It may be because they are so full of hatred due to their circumstance or experiences, and have formed some kind of theory that involves any kind of god not existing. Some people don’t want to believe that our Maker is a god who would let bad things happen to “innocent” people. So they may not acknowledge the slightest bit of truth in the given answer involving a god and blow it off with a “that doesn’t make any sense to me” comment. 

If you ever find yourself in a conversation like that, start off your conversation with a prayer and ask God for the words and to open the mind of whomever you’re speaking with, because that is definitely a conversation you’ll need God’s help with!

Totally not the point of this post.

So anyway...

I was eating frozen yogurt the other night (Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked Fro Yo) and I didn’t know until I opened the carton that the ice cream would be half chocolate and half vanilla. The chocolate had brownie in it and the vanilla had cookie dough in it. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was when I saw the chocolate. For some reason, I must have skipped over the words on the front of the container that said “CHOCOLATE and vanilla.” (If you couldn’t tell yet, I’m not the biggest fan of chocolate ice cream.) Sometimes when I get excited I only see the things I want to see. I know I was excited there was cookie dough frozen yogurt, so I must have skipped over all the other words in the description of the ice cream until I saw the words “cookie dough” on the front.  

You’d think I would have learned from this common mistake of mine...but I haven’t yet.

But I started eating the ice cream anyway, and scooped through and forced down the chocolate part. I wasn’t going to waste it since I just bought it. Plus, I knew there was cookie dough in there somewhere. Turns out there wasn’t as much cookie dough as there were brownies (which was within the chocolate ice cream). BUT every time I found a piece of cookie dough it was amazing. I think enduring the stupid brownie bites made the cookie dough SOOOOOOOOO much better. It was seriously so good! And once the pint was gone (over the period of a couple days...) I wanted more! Even tho most of the ice cream sucked, there were those couple awesome bites that made eating the rest of the pint worth it. So I went to WAWA and bought another pint of the Fro Yo to endure the nasty chocolate so I could get a couple tastes of the cookie dough out of it.

If you haven’t yet figured out how I’m going to relate frozen yogurt, to God, I guess I’ll tell you.

God is the cookie dough.

Chocolate is the crap in our lives. The stuff no one wants to deal with, but is always there. It’s the stuff that turns people away from the idea of a god.

Maybe someone else who wanted cookie dough frozen yogurt, and also hated chocolate ice cream, bought the same Fro Yo I did, but threw it away when they saw there was chocolate in it. Maybe they didn’t realize how amazing the cookie dough was, because they’ve never tasted the cookie dough in Ben and Jerry’s before. So they didn’t  give the cookie dough a chance because the chocolate turned them away.

If we throw away our frozen yogurt and never scoop through and endure the nasty chocolate, we will never experience the cookie dough. And the cookie dough is SO GOOD!

So in conclusion, I think what the little girl from Spin meant to say was God is the cookie
...dough.

Everyone loves the cookie dough and hates the chocolate. And some people choose to eat through the chocolate to find the dough, while others throw it all away and never buy that brand of ice cream again, because they’re so angry they wasted four dollars on the pint for nothing.

(I know some of you probably love chocolate and maybe hate cookie dough, but for the sake of this example, pretend you don’t like chocolate!)

If you search for the cookie dough with your whole spoon, not just on the surface of the  frozen yogurt, but throughout the whole pint, I promise you’ll find it. It’s in there.

Dig deep.

 

Your Kingdom Come (youth group missions trip part 2)

As you may know from my previous post, I was on a missions trip in New Jersey. We were doing some Hurricane Sandy clean up. Even tho the hurricane happened last year, there is still a lot of construction and repairs to be done. Last Wednesday we met our home owner Mrs. Ellen and really got to spend some time with her...but I’ll get to that part later...

The past week, some of the Junior High girls and I were put on the task of scrubbing the deck to get the dirt off for it to be stained. Let me list the progression of our days. If you want to skip over it, you can. It’s not important!
Monday
Arrive at house around 9:30ish.
Wait for soap and scrub brushes to clean garage because we forgot them. We start pulling weeds and vines out of the ground while we wait.
11ish- Soap arrives and we start scrubbing the garage.
1230- Lunch
Afternoon- I don’t even remember.

Tuesday
9:30ish- Arrive at house. Empty cabinets in kitchen.
Late morning- Girls leave me alone in the house to wash the deck without a power washer.
Early Afternoon- It’s hot, but there is talk about maybe having a power washer after lunch, so they slack off a bit, feeling like they were only doing busy work.
After Lunch- No power washer. Disappointment sets in for all of us. The sun is out, and we’re all a little over heated.
Afternoon- Katelyn leaves to go to a One Direction concert. (I’m thankful I got to stay scrub the deck.)
Late afternoon- Still no power washer. Some of us are still scrubbing. Others...not so much.
Wednesday
9:30- Power washer!!!!!
9:32- We find out there is no source for water.
10- We wait...and wait. Then we find a source of water!
10:30- It won’t start. But AJ saved us.
11-We run out of gas
11:30-Gas arrives (we needed AJ to help us start the dang thing again)
12- start cleaning up for lunch
After lunch- Walk to the beach
2:15- Get back and start power washing.
2:30- Runs out of gas. AJ fills it but...it won’t start back up.
2:45- Finally starts up.
3- clean up to go home.

As you can see, our week started out very frustrating!
I wanted to get stuff done!!!

However, I want to focus on today (while I’m writing this, it’s Wednesday.), and the work we did for His kingdom, not ours.

Let me tell you how I saw God this week...
On Wednesday we got to meet the homeowner, Mrs Ellen. In the morning, she kind of wandered in and out of the house to see what we were doing, or to just hang out a bit. She is super nice and encouraging, and thankful for us. While Mrs. Ellen was in the house, us girls were kind of standing around not doing much while waiting for the neighbor across the street to return so we could ask permission to use their hose for the power washer. While we were wasting time, the next door neighbor asks what we’re doing, and we tell him we’re waiting. And then he offered his hose to us, so we hooked everything up and got started. 

While one of the girls was power washing, I started to talk to Mrs. Ellen. She was so surprised that that specific neighbor offered his water. When I asked why, she said they haven’t spoken for years and have had arguments in the past. She described  him as mean (which could have been a little biased, I don’t know the guy!) and said they don’t even say hello to one another. That’s when I realized God was working in even the neighbors around us. I know it probably doesn’t seem that awesome and it’s probably a “you had to be there moment,” but even Sarah, our team leader from Team Effort Staff, was in complete shock he let us use his water. 

God was stirring up some hearts that day!!!

Then after lunch Katie and I were pretty determined to finish power washing the whole deck so tomorrow we could start staining it. BUT,  Mrs. Ellen wanted to take a walk to the beach with the group. At first, I told Sarah that Katie and I would stay behind to finish washing the deck, but Sarah strongly encouraged both of us to spend time with the homeowner. I was extremely hesitant, because I wanted to finish the deck and at that point I had felt like I was getting nothing done that I had come on the trip to do. I guess I was being pretty selfish at that point, because I wanted to feel like I actually did something. But God had other plans.

Better plans.

Katie and I gave in and went on the walk. I’m so glad I went.

Here’s why...
While walking, Mrs. Ellen started to tell us about the destruction that occurred during the storm. About all the sand in the streets, and the wind and rising waters during the hurricane. As we were walking we started to see some houses that were abandoned because insurance wouldn’t cover their repairs, or the repairs were too much to handle.  There was even one completely empty plot of land. It looked like the house was just torn down. We got to hear about how sand filled the streets and yards, and about how bulldozers came and pushed the sand back to the beach with whatever else was in the sand that was on the streets. Mrs. Ellen was very talkative, answering all of our questions about the storm and flooding. At one point Sarah asked Mrs. Ellen if she was alright walking, or if she wanted to turn back. I could tell Mrs. Ellen didn’t want to go home by the way she ignored Sarah’s question. It made me chuckle!

When we got closer to the beach, we could see the destruction for ourselves. The wall of one house looked like it had been ripped off. We could see right inside the house. Right at the start of the beach was a huge hill of sand from when the bulldozers pushed the sand out of the street.

Mrs. Ellen stopped to talk with us a bit, and then she said she’d love to be able to get up the hill to see the beach again. She used to love walking and seeing the beach, but now in her old age it’s hard for her. Jason (another youth leader) offered to help her climb the hill. She took him up on the offer pretty quickly.
With one arm in Jason’s and the other in Sarah’s, Mrs. Ellen climbed the hill very slowly.
When she made it to the top, the kids were already down by the water jumping in it with their shoes on...I’m still trying to figure out why they didn’t take them off, because later I had to yell at two of the girls for walking in the street without their shoes on. And they’re reply was “Ugh, but they’re wet.” I don’t understand the logic of junior highers, but I love them so much!

Anyway...
While the kids were playing in the water, and AJ was searching for scrap metal and creatures, Mrs. Ellen started talking to Jason, Sarah, Katie and I about how she knows that God sent us to her. She told us how she was living with no furnace during the winter. About how she had a stroke in January after the storm. About how she tried to get people to work on her house, but it was way too much money. She told us about how right when she was going to just give up, she received the phone call from Gateway church (the church Team Effort (the missions organization we went with) partners with) and they offered to help her with her house. Then she started talking about how she knows God is real. She told us a story about how she used to take care of cats (which she still does) and how one that was dying ran away. She said she prayed to God that He would bring the cat back, not so she could have him, but so that it wouldn’t die alone. She said when she got back the very same day, the cat was on her doorstep. You could see how much this cat returning meant to her. She said she felt God’s presence that day. 

Once we were getting ready to leave, Jason asked her if we could pray for her. She said of course. Little did I know that I was ready to burst into tears. Once Jason started thanking God for the day, and the accomplishments that Mrs. Ellen and the rest of the group made that day, I began trying to force back tears. My eyes were watering because I was so thankful. So thankful that Sarah made me go to the beach! Soooooo thankful to see God work in that way!

Then chapel later that night started off with “site sharing stories” like we did every night. After one person went, Jason got up to share. I was like great...I knew exactly what he was going to talk about because it impacted all of us so much. Jason didn’t even make it to the stage before I started fighting the tears again. Once he started talking I was done. Ashley Jirik was sitting next to me (a junior higher going into seventh grade) and she saw me crying and started wiping tears off my face as she was fighting back tears herself. It was awesome. Only because I can see God working in her life as well. At that moment, I knew she understood the impact that we had on Mrs. Ellen because of Jesus.

The rest of the night was awesome except for the fact that every time I tried to open my mouth, tears would come out of my eyes instead! Then Jeremy (our new youth director) made fun of me during small group because I was laughing and crying at the same time as I was trying to tell the story...Then I quit the story because it just wasn’t happening. It wasn’t that important anyway. It really wasn’t even sad! I couldn’t control myself!!! He proceeded to later tell me it was the weirdest thing ever. Thanks Jeremy. 

That night Jason came up with the idea to buy Mrs. Ellen a record player. We decided to do this because she said she had a record of the book Job from the bible. However, her record player broke during the storm. She told us how she loved listening to that record and how the story of Job helped her through the storm. The next day we gave it to her. Two of the junior high girls helped her set it up. They said her face lit up and she had a HUGE smile on her face when the record started playing. I wish I could have experienced that with them! 

The rest of the week went awesome. And our Junior High girls were amazing. They prayed together, did devotions together, shared their struggles with each other...all on their own!!! No one asked them to do those things, but they did! God is working in those girls so much. It excites the crap out of me! I cannot wait to see where God takes the kids in sharptown youth group. They are all wonderful and make my life 1,000 times more fun! I think I see God the most through them, and I am so thankful for every single one of them. I can’t tell you how much I love those kids. I’m pretty sure all 20 of us youth leaders feel the same exact way as well!

The biggest thing I learned from the weekend is that I have to focus more on God's kingdom, and not the kingdom of this world. I was so focused on trying to get work done on the house, that I almost missed out on sharing, praying, and glorifying God thru conversation with Mrs. Ellen. 

God had a different plan for the week than I had.

And His was so much better!

I am so thankful.

-Erika