Saturday, August 30, 2003
Announcing Blogs4god.com
During my foray into the world of RSS yesterday I ran across many new RSS feeds. One of those feeds led me to Blogs for God, a semi definitive listing of Christ centered blogs or journals
I registered our BLOG and RSS feed and I received the e-mail this morning that our(my) blog had been added to their index. Thanks so much for doing this Dean.
Yesterday I managed to break away from Cyberworld long enough to make a trip to the Berkeley County Solid Waste (DUMP) facility to get rid of moving boxes and assorted trash left by the former residents here. I also found a new appreciation for my wife's station wagon's air conditioner. When we moved from Greenville SC back to Duck Ditch USA (Goose Creek) it was painfully obvious to me that it is almost 5 to 10 degrees cooler in the upstate. That must be because we are closer to the mountains there. Maybe the elevation is higher? I do know that the humidity here is stifling compared to there.
This marks day 7 back home. We are still underemployed and over appreciated. Slowly but surely the junk is coming out of the boxes and being put in its appropriate places. This time around we are minus our 32" TV, cable TV , washer and dryer. The TV and cable connection is something we are going to learn to do without. I miss the ability to watch TV when I am eating dinner. I also miss late night TV which was used from time to time to help me to get to sleep on those nights where I was wide awake while everyone in the house was passed out.
The sad thing about cable TV is that everything on it with regards to movies and the like I have already seen. How many waking moments in my life have I wasted watching the stuff that Hollywood has produced for centuries. The answer to that question is too many. God has given each of us minds filled with the desire to acquire knowledge and to be inquisitive about our surroundings and environment. Somehow we have lulled ourselves to sleep mentally with the multitude of entertainment options in our world. Everywhere you turn there is input. Do you remember the movie Short Circuit? Johnny 5 being ALIVE. More input, more input he cried as he devoured hours and hours of TV programming and absorbed all the history and information that provided him.
Is TV sort of like a live LOG of human history perhaps? It certainly reflects human nature and the decline of morality through the centuries.
Johnny 5 (robot in movie) was always afraid of any attempt to DISASSEMBLE. Thinking back on the movie and on how information can be both positive and negative I am wondering if we have been allowing the garbage from Hollywood to slowly disassemble us mentally and spiritually.
For some reason television fills the role of allowing us to open up our minds and let go of the controls to what we allow to enter in. No, I do not feel that TV in and of itself is inherently evil or that it has supernatural abilities to control our minds. I do feel that we has humans have an uncanny desire to be entertained. We need to escape from the realities of this life and so we allow the boob tube to lull us into a false feeling of freedom and fantasy.
No sooner had we settled into our former residence Cable TV reared his ugly head in the shape of shared cable with our neighbor. Was I tempted to take the innocent black cable from my neighbor and run it through the window and attach it to my 13" (cough) black TV with no remote. Heck, I could atleast watch Jay Leno at night as I allowed my body and mind to be lulled into the world of sleepiness. Surprisingly enough for me I managed to remind myself that I would be stealing cable and not sharing it and that I need to be doing more constructive things with my mind than being lulled to a stupor by the television.
The down side of no television is that you are insulated and shielded from all the droning of all those marketing schemes called commercials and all the news broadcasts from around the world. Now that I think of that it is really not that bad. I can now choose to fill my time and my mind and spirit with OTHER things. I can choose to pursue knowledge and wisdom through reading of my bible, bible commentaries and listening to Christian radio.
The problem with time for us humans is that the hour glass that God has running for each of us is doing one thing each day. Time is slowly but surely running out. One day that sand will finally reach the end. The sand that was at the top will have filtered through to the bottom and time we end for us as we know it. Then we will be face to face with the God that created us and our lives will be a story that can be read through eternity. Our lives are but a vapor according to the bible.
In Ecclesisastes we read that everything has its season and God has given man a "season" to live in. It is up to us to do something positive and constructive with our lives during this season. God gave us life and grace because He created us and loves us with a love that is everlasting. We can never earn that grace or love. We can however use what God has given us and give it back to Him with seasons of time in which we pursue our relationship with Him and use what He gives us back to the community of people that He has placed us in.
How many people are prisoners in their own mind ? How many people has Hollywood captured? How many people are drowning in their daily entertainment shielded with a false hope and false security from the world full of dying people all around them? When we choose to substitute God for the things of this world we are short circuiting Gods perfect will and plan for our lives. We are more than just innocent microbes with no purpose other than to eat, drink , sleep and reproduce. We are creatures that are made in His image. We were designed to praise and worship our creator and to love him. We were created to bring pleasure to God Almighty through our devotion and love for Him and appreciation for His gifts to us.
Is it time for you and I to short circuit the controls that this world has on our lives and to refocus what we allow to enter into our minds and spirits? Instead of pursuing to be entertained and living in a fantasy world that gives us temporary relief we should instead be pursuing the truth. The problem with truth is that most of the time it really hurts.
Truth usually clears up all of the cloudy interference in our minds and gives us a clear reflection of who we are. The problem with truth is it always brings us to a point of making a decision. Decisions mean choices. A choice to change directions, attitudes and desires. When we are face to face with truth will we make the right choices? Most of the time when we make the right choice it will not be easy or a popular decision. In the book of Joshua we remember the cry of "choose you this day whom you will serve". What God are we serving anyway? Is God compartementalized in our lives and we only give him a tiny portion of our time, energy and resources?
If we only give God a tiny portion of our minds, hearts, spirit, gifts and talents what does that say about our devotion and love for Him? Do we love God this much as we spread out our arms signifying total surrender or do we have our arms wrapped around ourselves because we love ourselves and the things of this world so much that we can let go? Are we imprisoned by our own inability to let go and let God?
It is time that we short circuit the things in our world that are keeping us from being who God wants us to be. It is time for us to make decisions and choices that will not only redefine who we are but it will also redefine and change who the world is around us. When we learn how to redefine what makes us happy and what is important to us we will then be able to receive the full glory of God in our lives and be the containers of love, truth, mercy and grace that others in our lives will be able to turn to. The Bible says that we are to be separate from this world and not of this world. Be Ye Holy for I am Holy says the Lord God Almighty. Sanctification is a life long process that only God can work out through us. God needs for us to be devoted and sold out to the process though. God will never force us to short circuit those things that keep us from knowing Him fully.
Friday, August 29, 2003
Our Friends in Texas August 2003
I finally have the time to do a blog about our trip to Texas and I can also insert some cool pictures and SHOW you who some of our friends are.
Katy and Paula Bush at Kitchen Table in Garland Texas. Paula and Katy were childhood friends.
Rachel Bush sitting at Computer
Katy meets Melody Morris for the first time in REAL LIFE!!
Katy and Karen Perring in kitchen at Robstown Texas just outside of Corpus Christi Texas. Karen was Katy's High School friend.
After the memorial service for Hal Eads on South Padre Island on Saturday we left on Sunday morning and spent the day in Richmond Texas with Carla Meuth. Carla Meuth is a teacher at Sugurland Middle School who Katy worked with before we left Texas.
We left Richmond Texas on Monday after visiting with Carla Meuth and headed for Picyune Mississippi to visit with Dawn Vaughn who Katy knows through Circle of Friends elist. This picture shows Dawn and her 7 year old daughter Savannah
Our furry family members awaiting us when we arrived back in South Carolina
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Coming Home to Grace Fellowship Church
In July of 2000 we found ourselves living in Suburban Lodge off of Ashley Phosphate road in Charleston SC. All five of us lived in a single room with two beds, a bathroom and a tiny kitchenette. We found ourselves there because a decision had been made to utilize the medical services at MUSC for our daughter Jessica who was at that time 9 years old and had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.
In August of 2000 we met Troy and Shannon McNear in Goose Creek and we moved into their double wide trailer off of 159 Mapleridge Drive. We spent several months getting settled into our new surroundings and learning what it was like to have a daughter with cancer. Our church home was 2.5 hours away on Hilton Head Island and all the friends that we knew lived either in Texas or on Hilton Head Island or Bluffton SC. We missed the comfort of having people that we knew close to us. The search for a church home was sporadic at best and due to our circumstances we probably spent more time focusing on internal issues to our family vs. looking outside of our family.
In December of 2000 I wound up at the Trident Medical Center with chest pains in the Emergency Room. For the last ten years I have suffered chest pains about once per year and every time I would be examined nothing could be found. When I explained this to the doctors in the Trident Emergency Room they admitted me over night for observation and stress tests the next morning. I remember the pastoral care lady that came by to visit with me just before I was to be released. The first thing this pastoral care lady did was to ask me a direct question and wanted to know exactly how I felt about something. I have no idea what the question was at this time but I remember unloading on her. It is amazing that the lady stayed in the room with me longer than 5 minutes. I guess I had a lot on my mind and she became the recipient of all those thoughts and feelings.
One of the focuses of the conversation was to find out where our family attended church. Of course, at this point we were not attending anywhere. We did not have a church home. The pastoral care representative assured me that she would provide me with a list of local churches and organizations before I was discharged from the hospital. The conversation ended on that note and the lady took leave of my room. I figured that would be the last I would see of anyone in Pastoral Care at Trident Hospital. I also figured that the lady went back to her office to put a big red X on my room on some centralized map of the rooms in the hospital to warn other Pastoral Care employees to steer clear.
Before I knew it Tom Glisson knocks on the door and introduces himself as the Director of Pastoral Counseling at Trident Hospital and wanted to come in to chat for a few moments. I was having flash backs of the days when I would have fun with the local Jehovah's Witnesses. At first I would play stupid and let them present their plan to me. After a while I would start asking pointed questions about things to the point that they figured out that I was not a dummy and that I did in fact know something about my bible. Before I would know it I would have older and wiser representatives showing up at my door. So, here I was facing the "Big Gun" of pastoral care. I did not know if I was in trouble or if he was there to just escort me off the property.
Tom Glisson is very good at what he does and I think that the first thing that he did was to put my mind to ease. He was not there to shoot me with a big tranquilizer gun or to beat me up about what I had said or not said to his Pastoral Care representative. Tom told me that he was a little uneasy with sharing that he was the pastor of Grace Fellowship Church. He was uneasy about it because of ethical policies at the hospital which forbade him to solicit hospital patients for membership to the church he pastors. Tom Glisson offered me a list of local churches and told me if we happened to come by for a visit that we would be welcome.
I will never forget the day that I visited the CHEESY CHURCH located on a DEAD END Street in Goose Creek SC. One rainy Saturday evening in December of 2000 I found Grace Fellowship Church. If it had not been for the Internet and Mapquest I probably would have never found it. I remember calling Katy while sitting in front of the church in the parking lot and commenting how CHEESY the church looked and that it was located in the middle of a subdivision on a dead end street.
At first glance this church did not even come close to meeting anything that was on my check list for a church to visit much less considering our home. I was thinking, "You have got to be kidding me". Who in the world comes here? How can anyone find it? What can I ever hope to find here? What will my family think? Does Pastor Tom Glisson REALLY pastor a church that looks like this? Many thoughts went through my head and now I know that it was a good thing that I did not discount the value of the church because of the way the outside looked and where it was located. I threw the mental check list into the trash and committed to visiting the next day which was Sunday.
Little did I know but Grace Fellowship Church would become our church home for 2.5 years. I thought that I was the ONLY person that was crazy and had problems that most church pastors would shirk from. I even found out that I could scratch behind my ear and say "my doctor said I would be fine, he just never said when" and they actually loved me despite my problems and invited us to keep coming back. Maybe they kept allowing us to come back out of shear love and concern for Katy and the kids.
The year 2000 went into the year 2001 and in August of 2001 our daughter Jessica lost her battle with cancer and went to be with the Lord. Grace Fellowship church may not be the "popular" church in Goose Creek or easy to find. Grace Fellowship has a group of people that could care less about what you wear or what you drive to church or where you live. The church family accepts you for who you are and loves you despite your failures or shortcomings. The road that we walked down between June of 2000 and August of 2001 was not a very pleasant one and it was full of trials and anguish. I can honestly say that I am not sure that we would have survived the experience without the love and presence of Grace Fellowship Church and its members. Grace Fellowship became our church home and Pastor Tom Glisson became our pastor during this time.
In October of 2001 my contract with ACS Government Services was coming to an end at the end of the year and I began to utilize the Internet and recruiters to find a new permanent IT job or contract. Before I knew it I was offered a one year contract working for Ahold USA in Greenville SC. We found a house in Simpsonville SC to rent and shortly thereafter we left to start a new life away from Goose Creek SC and Grace Fellowship church. I can not tell you how tough that was to do. To move away from people that love and care for you. I remember Pastor Tom telling me about how upset he was about our leaving. I also can not remember any other pastor ever telling me that. The awesome part of being a member at Grace Fellowship Church is that you are not part of a huge organization that will swallow you up. You are part of the family and people know when you are there or not there.
In November of 2002 Ahold USA laid off 36 employees and told the contractors that our contracts would be terminated in April of 2003. On Feb 1 of 2003 my contract ended. I have been looking for work since then. Between November of 2002 and January of 2003 our family attended a church on a regular basis. We never joined because I did not know if this contract was going to be stable or not. When the leadership of this church found out that I was laid off but that we had not joined their church body they told us that there was nothing they could do for us because we were not official church members. We were not on their official church roll. I suppose that our attending regularly and tithing had nothing to do with it. It just was not good enough. We had a similar experience with another church and I have to say that those experiences soured me towards church attendance in general.
Recently our church family at Grace Fellowship came through in a BIG way when they helped us to make a trip to Corpus Christi Texas so Katy could attend a memorial service for her brother who had passed away in August of this year. Before we left for Texas we spent the weekend with Pastor Tom and his family and that was when he told me of a plan to approach the church to see about helping us to move back home. I was certainly surprised and overwhelmed by the idea. At this point in my life I was in survival mode making it from one day to the next and one week to the next wondering what in the world was going to happen to us.
I remember asking Pastor Tom why he was willing to approach the church about helping us in such a big way. Pastor Tom just shrugged his shoulders and said, "You are part of our family aren't you?" That is when I was reminded of the fact that even if you are not present in body once you become part of the church family at Grace Fellowship you are always considered family. The whole time we were gone in Simpsonville we kept in contact with Pastor Tom, his family and other church members because we had developed meaningful relationships and we missed all of the fun that we had together.
Grace Fellowship has reminded us and shown us that we are loved and appreciated as the church provided the funds needed to move us and our belongings back to Goose Creek. I am grateful for all of the hard work that was shown on Saturday when Pastor Tom, Tom Welch, Shawn, Troy McNear and many others whose names I can't remember helped us to unload the Uhaul truck and get settled back into our former residence. I am equally thankful to Troy and Shannon McNear for allowing us to move back into the house on 159 Mapleridge as well.
I am hopeful that Pastor Tom will share this story with the church either verbally or by passing this letter out so you can read it for yourself. I want to thank each of you at Grace Fellowship who have played a part in our family and the family life at Grace Fellowship Church. Your willingness to serve our family in both small and large ways has touched us tremendously. We are back HOME and we are glad to be here. Your love and generosity has stirred my faith in God and my spirit to the point that I want you to know that you too are part of our family. If there is anything that we can ever do to serve you or Grace Fellowship all you have to do is contact us and we will do whatever we can to minister to your needs or situation.
Thank you again for being the family of God and for being there for us in our time of need. May God richly bless you and anoint you to continue being who He wants you, the church, to be in this community.
In His Precious name and service
The Moffitt Family
In July of 2000 we found ourselves living in Suburban Lodge off of Ashley Phosphate road in Charleston SC. All five of us lived in a single room with two beds, a bathroom and a tiny kitchenette. We found ourselves there because a decision had been made to utilize the medical services at MUSC for our daughter Jessica who was at that time 9 years old and had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.
In August of 2000 we met Troy and Shannon McNear in Goose Creek and we moved into their double wide trailer off of 159 Mapleridge Drive. We spent several months getting settled into our new surroundings and learning what it was like to have a daughter with cancer. Our church home was 2.5 hours away on Hilton Head Island and all the friends that we knew lived either in Texas or on Hilton Head Island or Bluffton SC. We missed the comfort of having people that we knew close to us. The search for a church home was sporadic at best and due to our circumstances we probably spent more time focusing on internal issues to our family vs. looking outside of our family.
In December of 2000 I wound up at the Trident Medical Center with chest pains in the Emergency Room. For the last ten years I have suffered chest pains about once per year and every time I would be examined nothing could be found. When I explained this to the doctors in the Trident Emergency Room they admitted me over night for observation and stress tests the next morning. I remember the pastoral care lady that came by to visit with me just before I was to be released. The first thing this pastoral care lady did was to ask me a direct question and wanted to know exactly how I felt about something. I have no idea what the question was at this time but I remember unloading on her. It is amazing that the lady stayed in the room with me longer than 5 minutes. I guess I had a lot on my mind and she became the recipient of all those thoughts and feelings.
One of the focuses of the conversation was to find out where our family attended church. Of course, at this point we were not attending anywhere. We did not have a church home. The pastoral care representative assured me that she would provide me with a list of local churches and organizations before I was discharged from the hospital. The conversation ended on that note and the lady took leave of my room. I figured that would be the last I would see of anyone in Pastoral Care at Trident Hospital. I also figured that the lady went back to her office to put a big red X on my room on some centralized map of the rooms in the hospital to warn other Pastoral Care employees to steer clear.
Before I knew it Tom Glisson knocks on the door and introduces himself as the Director of Pastoral Counseling at Trident Hospital and wanted to come in to chat for a few moments. I was having flash backs of the days when I would have fun with the local Jehovah's Witnesses. At first I would play stupid and let them present their plan to me. After a while I would start asking pointed questions about things to the point that they figured out that I was not a dummy and that I did in fact know something about my bible. Before I would know it I would have older and wiser representatives showing up at my door. So, here I was facing the "Big Gun" of pastoral care. I did not know if I was in trouble or if he was there to just escort me off the property.
Tom Glisson is very good at what he does and I think that the first thing that he did was to put my mind to ease. He was not there to shoot me with a big tranquilizer gun or to beat me up about what I had said or not said to his Pastoral Care representative. Tom told me that he was a little uneasy with sharing that he was the pastor of Grace Fellowship Church. He was uneasy about it because of ethical policies at the hospital which forbade him to solicit hospital patients for membership to the church he pastors. Tom Glisson offered me a list of local churches and told me if we happened to come by for a visit that we would be welcome.
I will never forget the day that I visited the CHEESY CHURCH located on a DEAD END Street in Goose Creek SC. One rainy Saturday evening in December of 2000 I found Grace Fellowship Church. If it had not been for the Internet and Mapquest I probably would have never found it. I remember calling Katy while sitting in front of the church in the parking lot and commenting how CHEESY the church looked and that it was located in the middle of a subdivision on a dead end street.
At first glance this church did not even come close to meeting anything that was on my check list for a church to visit much less considering our home. I was thinking, "You have got to be kidding me". Who in the world comes here? How can anyone find it? What can I ever hope to find here? What will my family think? Does Pastor Tom Glisson REALLY pastor a church that looks like this? Many thoughts went through my head and now I know that it was a good thing that I did not discount the value of the church because of the way the outside looked and where it was located. I threw the mental check list into the trash and committed to visiting the next day which was Sunday.
Little did I know but Grace Fellowship Church would become our church home for 2.5 years. I thought that I was the ONLY person that was crazy and had problems that most church pastors would shirk from. I even found out that I could scratch behind my ear and say "my doctor said I would be fine, he just never said when" and they actually loved me despite my problems and invited us to keep coming back. Maybe they kept allowing us to come back out of shear love and concern for Katy and the kids.
The year 2000 went into the year 2001 and in August of 2001 our daughter Jessica lost her battle with cancer and went to be with the Lord. Grace Fellowship church may not be the "popular" church in Goose Creek or easy to find. Grace Fellowship has a group of people that could care less about what you wear or what you drive to church or where you live. The church family accepts you for who you are and loves you despite your failures or shortcomings. The road that we walked down between June of 2000 and August of 2001 was not a very pleasant one and it was full of trials and anguish. I can honestly say that I am not sure that we would have survived the experience without the love and presence of Grace Fellowship Church and its members. Grace Fellowship became our church home and Pastor Tom Glisson became our pastor during this time.
In October of 2001 my contract with ACS Government Services was coming to an end at the end of the year and I began to utilize the Internet and recruiters to find a new permanent IT job or contract. Before I knew it I was offered a one year contract working for Ahold USA in Greenville SC. We found a house in Simpsonville SC to rent and shortly thereafter we left to start a new life away from Goose Creek SC and Grace Fellowship church. I can not tell you how tough that was to do. To move away from people that love and care for you. I remember Pastor Tom telling me about how upset he was about our leaving. I also can not remember any other pastor ever telling me that. The awesome part of being a member at Grace Fellowship Church is that you are not part of a huge organization that will swallow you up. You are part of the family and people know when you are there or not there.
In November of 2002 Ahold USA laid off 36 employees and told the contractors that our contracts would be terminated in April of 2003. On Feb 1 of 2003 my contract ended. I have been looking for work since then. Between November of 2002 and January of 2003 our family attended a church on a regular basis. We never joined because I did not know if this contract was going to be stable or not. When the leadership of this church found out that I was laid off but that we had not joined their church body they told us that there was nothing they could do for us because we were not official church members. We were not on their official church roll. I suppose that our attending regularly and tithing had nothing to do with it. It just was not good enough. We had a similar experience with another church and I have to say that those experiences soured me towards church attendance in general.
Recently our church family at Grace Fellowship came through in a BIG way when they helped us to make a trip to Corpus Christi Texas so Katy could attend a memorial service for her brother who had passed away in August of this year. Before we left for Texas we spent the weekend with Pastor Tom and his family and that was when he told me of a plan to approach the church to see about helping us to move back home. I was certainly surprised and overwhelmed by the idea. At this point in my life I was in survival mode making it from one day to the next and one week to the next wondering what in the world was going to happen to us.
I remember asking Pastor Tom why he was willing to approach the church about helping us in such a big way. Pastor Tom just shrugged his shoulders and said, "You are part of our family aren't you?" That is when I was reminded of the fact that even if you are not present in body once you become part of the church family at Grace Fellowship you are always considered family. The whole time we were gone in Simpsonville we kept in contact with Pastor Tom, his family and other church members because we had developed meaningful relationships and we missed all of the fun that we had together.
Grace Fellowship has reminded us and shown us that we are loved and appreciated as the church provided the funds needed to move us and our belongings back to Goose Creek. I am grateful for all of the hard work that was shown on Saturday when Pastor Tom, Tom Welch, Shawn, Troy McNear and many others whose names I can't remember helped us to unload the Uhaul truck and get settled back into our former residence. I am equally thankful to Troy and Shannon McNear for allowing us to move back into the house on 159 Mapleridge as well.
I am hopeful that Pastor Tom will share this story with the church either verbally or by passing this letter out so you can read it for yourself. I want to thank each of you at Grace Fellowship who have played a part in our family and the family life at Grace Fellowship Church. Your willingness to serve our family in both small and large ways has touched us tremendously. We are back HOME and we are glad to be here. Your love and generosity has stirred my faith in God and my spirit to the point that I want you to know that you too are part of our family. If there is anything that we can ever do to serve you or Grace Fellowship all you have to do is contact us and we will do whatever we can to minister to your needs or situation.
Thank you again for being the family of God and for being there for us in our time of need. May God richly bless you and anoint you to continue being who He wants you, the church, to be in this community.
In His Precious name and service
The Moffitt Family
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
This week is being spent getting things back into shape around the house. We still have multiple boxes sitting around the house begging to be unloaded. The job search is continuing and I have managed to clean up a majority of the jungle that was surrounding us on all sides.
It has been HOT HOT HOT here. Whew, you would think I lived in Afghanistan. Ok, maybe it has not been quite that hot but it has been pretty steamy here.
I went to hear Pastor Bob Gray at Trident Baptist Church on Monday and Tuesday. The key message from Dr. Gray was on soul winning. I have a five page sermon outline for those of you that are interested in digging into what the word of God has to say about that.
We are getting ready to go to Grace Fellowship for the monthly pot luck dinner which will be SO Yummy...
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