Touching Life Today

As Chaplain at the Centre of Hope it is my responsibility for this month to send a devotion out to all the staff in this building and a couple of others in the city.

Today was my first kick at it. I'll share what I wrote here because I think it's worth sharing (toot, toot - tooting my own horn!).

Hi all,

This is my first go round with these devos, so, first up a snippet about me!

I am the husband of but one wife, Leslie! We met in high school, dated for five years and have been married for just over 14 years. We have three great kids who teach us more about God & life than I'm sure we teach them. I won't mention the dog & cat because I don't include them as members of the fam (despite the fact that my wife does).

Leslie & I are in our twelfth year as full time pastors and are presently planting a house church in our neighbourhood. I'm working at COH full time to alleviate the financial stress on a new church plant while Leslie works part time at Jackson Willan Seniors' Residence for the same reason.

Here's where God is showing up and what He's teaching me this week:

My daughter came home from school on Friday having coloured a turkey for Thanksgiving. The turkey had 4 big feathers hanging from it (I think they were feathers, it wouldn't make sense for the turkey to have 4 big wings!). On each feather Julia had written something she was thankful for.

Here's what she wrote:

• I'm thankful for God because God made me.
• I'm thankful for my family because they love me.
• I'm thankful for my brothers because I love them.
• I'm thankful for Terry Fox because he ran across Canada.

I thought to myself, "Julia gets it!" There isn't one thing on that list that has to do with material possessions. Sure she could have said her Hannah Montana toys or her DS, but she didn't. Each of the things she's thankful for has to do with people & relationships.

A while ago Leslie & I began to stress to our kids the importance of people over things. This was our lead up to Christmas a few years back. With thanksgiving having just passed & Christmas approaching (you know you were thinking about it before I even mentioned it) & especially in daily life - let's put people before things.

I don't know who said it but I once heard it said that we should love people & use things, not use people & love things (hey, that could make it on a Starbucks cup!).

Maybe we could use today to practice putting people before things - I'm going to!