Well, for those of you keeping score at home….



We are dangerously close to looking like a tattoo shop. Sort of. I made the analogy of giving birth to this ministry the other day, and I still think it is valid. Somewhat disgusting, but valid non the less. We have prayed, agonized, and gone into a ridiculous debt, as we have tried to drag this ministry into reality kicking and screaming. We have a location, but I have not even been able to get in to paint it yet. I keep thinking I will be able to, then bam, something comes up, and I have to push my all impotent (no, that isn’t a typo) time line back yet another day! It is enough to make a guy do something crazy… and I did. I bought a day planner. There, I’ve said it, and I feel better. It is good to own up to your lapses in judgment. You see, when I moved back to Detroit, I threw my day planner away. Why would I ever need something so repressive, so restricting, so ministerial ever again? I was going to reinvent myself, and my ministry. I was going to be the person I used to be… just without all the drugs and booze. Now look at me! I am going to open a Tattoo shop! How cool? How bohemian? How free spirited and unrepressed? Yea right… If you think that is how it is, then you have never tried to open a tattoo shop. In all fairness, my guess is that opening any business is the same. You have 10,000 details that seem to pop up for every one you get locked down. So I bought a day planner, and even put my first important date in it. Nov 18th, in case you were wondering. That is the date we have our fundraiser at church. Remember that ridiculous debt I was talking about? Well, we are going to open it up, and see if anyone wants to partner with us in this project. Like any other mission trip, this one needs cash to run on. I wish it weren’t that way, but them’s the facts Jack! By the way, if anyone is interested in contributing, please contact me and I will point you to the people at Rochester Church of Christ.

So, here I am running around trying to get things taken care of so I can get to painting. I’m stressed out, and toting a new day planner. I am behind schedule, and wondering if I could just not sleep for the rest of the week, would I be able to get caught up. Then I see some emails, and check the responses on this site, and I realize that things are coming along just exactly the way they are supposed to. Not the way I would have chosen them to go, but I’m guessing that they are going the way God wanted them to. And His vote trumps mine every time. I just don’t always realize it at the time.

I wrote earlier today that “a well is of no use to a thirsty man, unless he has something with which to draw the water up. I see now that God smashed my house in order to give me wood with which to fashion a bucket” (or something like that. I have been accused before of talking in proverbs). At the time, I was referring to the last couple of years in my life. But sitting here tonight, I realize the smashing is still going on. It always goes on! It’s kind of like living in a spiritual wood chipper. We are so sure that our plans are in the right order, or our list of priorities is in the right order, but God sees things differently than us sometimes. We see ourselves building a wonderful house to live in, and He sees us putting a lot of great bucket wood to waste! Funny huh?

So, I guess I will just have to take things as they come, and hope that I will get the painting done sometime this week. Until then, I will just see what God has planned for my days, and try to learn a thing or two along the way. Thanks to each and every one of you for your responses to the posts. They really do mean a lot to me. Happy bucket making!

Pete