Monday

Monday was a good day.

At 10am I met with Huntington University students; Ruth Ann Price invited me again to join their class to help discuss Reggie McNeal's helpful book, The Present Future. Jeff Carroll of Union Church joined us as well. It's fun to talk about Anchor with the students, to get good ministry questions, and think through with them how Anchor is seeking to do effective ministry in these days.

At 11am I officiated the funeral for Tracy Flynn. Tracy attended Anchor for about two years back in 2002 or so. She also played softball with my aunts and mum way back when, so there was a neat family connection. Many of her friends shared very beautiful stories of Tracy. Her death was unexpected, and her loss is felt deeply. Though I didn't know much about her spiritual journey, it was a good opportunity to encourage her family and friends to continue in theirs, to take their next step with Jesus in the days they have left.

Shirley and Faye were at the funeral, they spent some time with Tracy back when she was in high school. We did lunch together and it was helpful to talk about how they felt the funeral went. They are so sweet!

2pm was homework time; this was my day to study for my final exam. The professor of our Gospels class provided some quizzes (not for credit) that we could take to prep for the final exam. I really want to get an A in this class. It took about four hours to work through the eight quizzes, but I got through them and feel good about the content and the upcoming exam.

6pm: dinner time with Mum, Emma and Eli. Tara took Levi and Isaac to participate in a TV commercial. Raymond James is getting ready to run a commercial and they wanted twins in it; Levi and Isaac were some that were selected. They had fun, maybe they'll actually get to be on TV! Mum stuck around to help with dinner, and then afterwards Emma invited Eli and I to play up in her room. We played Beauty and the Beast; she put a flannel shirt on me so that I would have a Beast costume, and then we packed a bag for the beach. But then I had to be the diving board at the pool, she made me lay down so she could stand on me and then jump into the imaginary ocean. Crazy kid. By this time Tara is home with the guys, so now Levi and Isaac are taking turns jumping...but they tended to jump on me, not off of me. Ha!

8pm was Monday Night Football - I assumed that the Steelers would kill the Dolphins, and thus Ben and Hines would get tons of Fantasy points so that I could defeat Faye and move one spot closer to a tie with her in first place. But alas, it was a three point game - no touchdowns, and thus no win for me. Argh. There's always next week.