The Difference Between Tutors and Tooties--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear friends,

 

Hope all is well with you this week!  This week begins the season of Lent, the 40 days (not including Sunday’s) leading up to Easter.  Lent has traditionally been a time to focus on turning our whole attention to Christ, to actively create space in our lives where this is possible (especially where it has not been before), and to listen intently to what He would say to us as we prepare for the celebration of Easter, Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection.  This week we will be offering an opportunity to offer yourself to God in a new way, to consecrate more of who you are to more of who He is.  I hope you will join in this journey of preparation.  It will be a total blessing!

 

With that in mind here are the activities this week:

 

Tuesday Worship—6:30pm, we will look at the Belt of Truth, especially how it relates to Jesus’ time of temptation in the desert. 

 

Wednesday, Special Ash Wednesday Service—Noon in our chapel!  Come and receive the imposition of ashes.  We will prepare our hearts together  for this time of consecration!

 

Thursday Free Meal & Program—6:30pm, we will look at how life can so easily become like the soil on the path, as well as what to do when that happens!

 

Ladies Groups:  Wed. 1:30pm / Thurs. 3pm

Men’s Group:  Thurs. 5:30pm

 

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

I live in a testosterone zone.  I am married to a wonderful man and also have two small sons.  Clearly I am outnumbered three to one.  The thing about being around boys all the time (and college students by the way) is that humor can often be very earthy, especially when it comes to bodily functions.  Passing gas is very much a moment of triumph and humor at my house, especially for my two year old.  We will be sitting in a room, hear a tell-tale noise, smell the tell-tale smell, and know that somebody “tooted.”  Isaiah will often say, with much enthusiasm, “I did it!”

 

One afternoon I was picking my boys up at their grandmother’s house.  I had just arrived and walked into the kitchen where my 12 year old niece was explaining that she had spent the afternoon helping one of her schoolmates with his work.  It was a proud moment when she explained to Nanny that she had been his tutor.  Isaiah was in the same room as well, and every time she said the word tutor, he would bust out laughing.  It took us a little while, but I finally figured out that he thought she was talking about passing gas.  He thought it was hysterical!

 

I can’t help wondering how many times we are trying to share with someone about our faith or trying to tell an unbeliever about Jesus and the results turn out the same?  We are trying to be helpful, like a tutor, seeking to share the knowledge that brings God’s life and goodness to those who need it, and instead they respond as if we are smelly, like a tootie, which is really all about hot air.  There were many times when I was a teenager that a friend would try to convince me I needed to be “saved” (apparently they thought infant baptism didn’t count), and I came away feeling less like I had received good news and more like I never wanted to speak with that person again.  Which also created quite a dilemma when I too felt led to share my faith with someone else:  I really didn’t want to stink up the place and turn them off instead of turning them on to a relationship with Christ.

 

What I have learned since then is that good news only has its source in the only One who is truly good.  Consider the following scene as it unfolded for the first people to really share God’s good news:

 

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly from heaven there came a sound lik the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.  Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.  And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  Amazed and astonished they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?  And how is it that we hear each of us, in our own native language?  . . . .  in  our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power” (Acts 2:1-13).

 

The Holy Spirit, which is God’s power and presence with us, gave them everything they needed to speak the word of truth to those who needed to hear it, and who were also vastly different from them.  So what I have learned, and what I have witnessed in my own life, is that the Spirit of God makes the message of God clear in a language the hearer can understand.  On that day it had a lot to do with literal languages.  I think that is still true, but I also believe that today it has as much to do with different generations, different cultures, different experiences, different everything.  Each one of us hears differently, for all kinds of reasons.  It takes the wisdom and power of God to translate His good news into truly good news for all of us.  We each hear differently; we need God to translate His Holy Word into our difference.  We may still not accept it, but at least then we can understand it. 

 

So this Lent, it is my prayer that God will fill us with the power of His Holy Spirit, just like Jesus came out of the wilderness filled with the power of the Spirit, so that we can truly convey the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection to people who need to experience it so badly.  If we try to do it without Him, even though our intentions might be good, our results will smell.  And who wants to be smelly when we can be the aroma of Christ?  May God’s grace and goodness help us to become tutors of His Holy Word.  And may we receive all the help we can get, especially in all the ways we try to give it.

 

This is me hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

You're Beautiful! Wesley Foundation E-Letter (United Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

Hope all of you are doing well!  I look forward to getting to see you this week.  We are back on our regular schedule this week:

 

Worship Tonight @ 6:30pm at Wesley

 

Thursday night free meal & program @ 6:30pm at Wesley

 

Ladies Groups:

 

Wednesday @ 1:30pm

Thursday @ 3pm

 

We begin a new series of messages tonight based on Ephesians 6, being clothed in the armor of God.  Come and experience God’s grace in giving you everything you need to meet the challenges of your everyday life.  And Thursday we will experience “Spontaneous Melodrama.”  I am so excited!  It’s going to be great!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Last night after giving baths my boys and I sat down to color.  I told them that if they were good while they took their baths I would teach them how to draw butterflies.  We had great fun, and I re-discovered a part of me that has been neglected for awhile:  the artist inside.  I like making things.  I like to draw and color.  I like to sew.  I like to give expression to the pictures I see in my head, and then see them take shape as something pretty to hold in my hands.  I love seeing that vision come to life.

 

I think this is how God is, the One who spoke all of creation into being.  One of my very favorite scriptures is from Psalm 139: 

 

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth (vs 13-15).

 

I can imagine God at the beginning of every life, watching it unfold, working through the process of growth even while a child is in its momma’s belly, choosing how the genes will fit together and express themselves, shaping and forming every part, seeing the totality of the life within His grasp, present and future, personality and body, spirit and mind, all coming together as a tangible expression of His creative love.  How cool is it that God is intimately and intricately involved in every part of our coming to life?  I can’t imagine God looking at any human being alive without a deep sense of joy and longing; joy because the vision of that person has become tangible, longing because each one of us has free will and may or may not choose to be in relationship with the One who made us.  Of course He longs for us.

 

I can’t help thinking about this creative labor of love that God gives whenever I reflect on the visitor who stood on the steps of DUC last week.  I’m not quite sure I can name his purpose for being there.  I suppose he felt called to expose and name the sin that enfolds many college campuses.  He argued forcefully with many who stopped to listen to his rampage, having their comments rebuffed with his determinations about their spiritual status.  Many came away feeling condemned by this man.  I hope and pray they didn’t come away feeling condemned by God.  “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).  I just feel in my heart that this man did not communicate the longing that God feels in His heart for His children who are not connected to Him, whose lives are somehow missing the fulfillment, the fullness, that He wanted to bring forth when He created them in the first place.  I just know that when God looks at us, He sees His labor of love.  Certainly it pains Him to see us living in brokenness and sin.  But He also understands why we are broken, how we got that way, and especially the tender mercy of Jesus Christ that heals us so that we can choose well, so that we can choose Him.  Jesus took all that condemnation to the cross so we would bear it no more.  It is His gift to us.  He has removed everything from us that could separate us from the God who created us.  When God looks at each one of us He sees the child He made and loves.  And even before we see it ourselves, He sees the magnificent being, mature and complete, that He created us to be.

 

Thursday night after experiencing an amazing day of sharing God’s love through warm fuzzies (200 feet down from the guy with fuzzy purposes) and an amazing night of prayer, I had a dream.  In my dream people were lining up to receive a revelation from God, but the person sharing it said they must be spanked to learn a lesson in submission.  As I stood looking at these persons standing in line to be beaten, something within me broke and began to say passionately to the pastor, “You can’t do this!  You don’t understand, these persons have been abused!”  I knew that they would connect the abuse of their past to this “lesson in submission.”  I knew it had to be stopped.  That’s all I remember from that dream, but it’s message is clear.  Coming to know the God who made you is not a fearful and degrading thing; it is a joyful and life-giving thing.  God does not sanction any abuse, including religious:  “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord” (Isaiah 65:25).  Even His judgment is filled with love, always wanting to redeem and fulfill that initial creative impulse that made your birth His tangible expression of Divine Love.

 

So I don’t care if your life is filled with sin, you are still beautiful to me because you are a child of God.  Where I see you hurting I hurt.  Where poor judgments keep your heart and life broken, I weep for and with you.  But God’s Love always sees you through the redemptive power of Jesus Christ.  When God looks at you He sees the Love that gave you life in the first place, and the promise and possibility of Christ’s love fulfilling that life within you.  You are precious to me and especially to Him.

 

This is me hoping,

 

Sami

 

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Chili Prayers--Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

I hope you are staying warm in all of this cold weather!  If you want a ride to the Wesley Foundation just call 270-842-2880 thirty minutes before we meet and someone will come and pick you up!  Also, this should warm your insides:  We were able to give $94.11 from our student offerings to help people who are still suffering from the winter storm.  I know many of your families remain without power.  We pray God’s protection and help for them.

 

Tonight is our FREE MEAL and program.  It will be lots of fun.  The food is always good.  So join us at 6:30pm.  Next week we will be in DUC for our Valentine’s outreach to campus giving away warm fuzzies.  Come and find out how you can be a blessing!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Last Sunday night we had our annual Superbowl party at the Wesley.  We also had some special guests join us (hi Justin and Beth!).  It was a wonderful time of fellowship and fun.  And the game was so exciting even I got into it!  Like most events in life, it took some preparation.  And as I began that afternoon to brown the beef for our chili feast, my heart began to think fondly of those who would be consuming the very thing I was in the midst of cooking. 

 

I think all things in life can be holy when offered to the Lord, because the Lord is always near.  On a plaque at a retreat house I often visited in Florida were these words:  “Bidden or un-bidden, God is present.”  How true.  There isn’t anywhere He is not.  Psalm 139 puts it this way: 

 

Where can I go from your spirit?  Or where can I flee from your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.  If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.  (Psalm 139: 7-10)

 

And even when we exert all kinds of energy to go to places He is not, even then our efforts are wasted because He is still there.  How much better then to give up running and simply welcome the inevitable; let Him join us where we are, even as we are. 

 

I think one of the biggest reasons people run from God is because they expect Him to try and squash them.  Kind of like the new reality show called  “Wipe Out,” they think God is just waiting for an opportunity to wipe them out and knock them off of their feet for all the ways they haven’t been able to live up to what they think are His expectations.  I remember in high school English having to read a sermon by Jonathan Edwards called “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  In high school I think I believed it.  But since then, as I have gotten to know the Lord in a very personal way, I have discovered Him to be nothing like that at all.  I have found that God is funny and gentle, tender and wise, mischievous and good, constant and persistent, steadfast and patient, creative and comforting, new and challenging, unrelenting and stubborn, consistent and expectant, hopeful and helpful, generous and courteous, everywhere and intimate, knowledge giving and mysterious, loving and leading, inviting and welcoming, sending and commissioning, quiet and consuming.

 

So I stood at my stove top making chili, thinking fondly of those who were about to eat it, thinking fondly of the Lord, and I began to pray that all who eat would be fed with God’s love, even as they would be fed with ground beef, tomatoes, beans, and spices.  And just as that chili would give nutrients to sustain, I prayed that the Love of God would make its way all through their lives giving strength and guidance where it is needed most.  God is as present to us as chili in our stomachs.  And the pervasive love of God works its way into our lives in ways we are totally unconscious of, making ripples of impact the way the co-centric circles of water ripple forth from a stone’s throw.  Often we only hear the stone drop and think the event is over.  We rarely are patient enough to see water lapping gently against the shore. 

 

And so here is to chili prayers and a Superbowl party, a holy event in the life of our ministry.  Jesus chose a party to perform His first miracle.  And those who received it were barely conscious of the grace that had just changed their lives forever.  In the same way our precious Lord still shows up at parties.  And He still transforms ordinary things into miracles of grace.  May His chili blessings be with you always.  (Just not the indigestion!)  And may you know that you never have to run from God’s love.  His love is everything your are trying to run to.

 

This is me hoping,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Welcome Back to WKU: String Bikini's and It's great to be you!-- Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

It is awesome to be back on the hill, and yes, we are back on schedule for our regular times this week (weather permitting of course).  Tomorrow night we will have WORSHIP at 6:30pm.  The praise team from Christ UMC led by Marco Ballesteros, Jr. will be leading us.  Our service will also center around praying for the semester and the year, consecrating it wholly to Him and asking His blessing upon it.  Come and be filled with His love!!!!!!!

 

Also on THURSDAY night we will have our free meal and program beginning at 6:30pm.  It should be a wonderful time because Todd Misenor from WKU’s health and fitness lab will be sharing with us about how faith and fitness fit together, as well as what opportunities are available at WKU’s Preston Center.  Todd attends Broadway UMC with his family.

 

Of course if there is an ice storm and it is dangerous to get around, don’t!  But I will send out a notice if we officially cancel any events.

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

As a girl, I have struggled during my life with many things that girls struggle with.  The desire to be pretty has always been one of those things.  At least when I was younger, before babies, and certainly before becoming an old married woman.  Now Tim is the only one who I really, really want to impress.  As long as I am presentable, I could care less for ooh’s and ahh’s from anyone else.  But it didn’t used to be this way.

 

I remember one day when I was thirteen years old.  I was walking down the road from our home in the country toward our neighbor’s house.  The property our house was situated on backed up to Old Hickery Lake in Lebanon, TN.  Most of our neighbors were retired and spent their time fishing during the week.  During the summers we would gather at one of their houses, eat fried fish and hushpuppies, and enjoy the many outdoor activities that go along with lake living.  This particular neighbor had a swimming pool in their yard.  My brothers, sister, and I spent many afternoons there swimming, having dog paddling races, and playing “Marco Polo.”  On this particular day I could see that our neighbor had a guest.  I was so far away that I couldn’t tell who it was, but I did see that is was some girl in a string bikini, sun bathing on the pool deck.  I wanted so badly to be able wear one of those myself.  And in the stillness of my heart I prayed a prayer that only a thirteen year old girl could come up with, “God, I want to look like that.”

 

Eventually my walk brought me closer to the swimming pool.  It was with dismay that I finally recognized who the sunbather was.  Why it wasn’t a girl at all.  It was a middle aged woman.  And furthermore that was definitely NOT the body I thought I wanted.  Up close it really began to lose its appeal.  It lacked tone; it sagged; it bulged in all the wrong places.  From a distance it looked great.  Up close I decided really quickly that I was more than pleased with my own.  So have you ever heard of back pedaling prayers?  “Uhm, God?  You know that prayer I prayed just a minute ago?  Can I take it back?  I mean really, PLEASE don’t answer it!  I am very happy with what I have.  PLEASE don’t give me a string bikini filled with THAT!”

 

So what do string bikini’s have to do with Jesus?  Well, let me explain.  I spent a lot of my younger life wanting to be someone else.  As a pre-teen and teenager I felt awkward and shy.  I never really felt like I fit in.  I looked with longing at the lives of other girls in my Jr. High and High School, wondering what it would be like to be them.  I even envied the lives of other girls in my youth group.  I never felt pretty enough, popular enough, smart enough, talented enough, good enough.  Nothing in me seemed to be enough.  But the mercy of the passage of time is that it clarifies so many things.  I believe this is one of the great gifts of Facebook.  I have gotten to see many of the folks I went to highshool with.  And while it is so nice to see them again, it has revealed something of great worth to me:  I am glad to be who I am.  The realization came when I was reflecting on the Facebook reunions.  It was as if God asked me, “Now would you like to be any of them?”  And the answer that came back was no, I am glad to be exactly who I am.  Not that the lives they are living are bad.  They’re just not mine.  And God has filled mine with all the things that give me the most joy of all.

 

The gift of new beginnings is that we once again have a new opportunity for God to reveal how He lovingly made us for a single purpose, how who we are fulfills something that no one else can, how we are a labor of His love in design and destiny, and how we fit perfectly into His plan.  This is a time to step back and offer all that we are to a God who loves us so passionately, who crafted us so intentionally, and who guides us so specifically.  There are so many good reasons for why He made us the way He did.  And He alone can turn our regrets and what might have been’s into reasons for praise and celebration, because He uses even those to reveal His goodness and glory.  I just know that His story in your life is one that is worth knowing.  It is one worth sharing.  It is one worth celebrating.  So join me Tuesday night as we consecrate who we are and all that remains as yet unlived into His hands.  Join me in inviting His touch into our lives and let’s celebrate together the One who has the power to redeem it all.  Here’s to not having that prayer answered all those years ago.

 

This is me hoping,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Lightning McQeen and Christmas--Wesley E-letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hello Friends!  Hope finals are going well.  We have one more day of FREE LUNCH!  Come by tomorrow from 11am till 1pm (or after).  We will be having lasagna and ziti.  And we have a fantastic road trip on Friday. 

 

Be sure and show up on Friday at 4pm at the Wesley for our annual Opryland Road Trip.  We will go to Opry Mills to shop and eat.  And then about 7:30pm or 8pm we will walk over to see the lights at Opryland Hotel.  After we finish there we will head over to the Cheesecake Factory for desert.  Yay!

 

Now For “Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus”

 

One of the movies we watch at my house pretty constantly is “Cars.”  It is the story of a hotshot race car that gets lost in a small town and learns the value of slowing down and appreciating life, as well as those around him.  In the beginning of the movie through an unfortunate series of events “Lightning McQueen” finds himself in the courtroom of Radiator Springs.  He has just demolished the only road in town and the locals are angry.  The town attorney makes an impassioned plea to the judge to make Lightning fix the road “because we are a town worth fixing!” she says. 

 

I heard that line just recently.  (“Cars” was on, again.  Isaiah has to watch it at least once a day.)  Something about it hit me in a fresh way.  Like the affirmations of faith we recited in church when I was a child, the words sounded almost holy:  definitely an affirmation, definitely words of faith. “We are a town worth fixing.”  It made me think of the words from John 3:16:  “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten son, so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  God’s attitude towards the world is that we are world worth saving.  Our lives are worth redeeming.  Our heartache is worth healing.  Our emptiness is worth filling.  Our human-ness is worth loving.  We are people worth loving.

 

That thought just fills me up.  It staggers me that this is what God thinks of all of us, that we are worth loving, no matter the cost, no matter the inconvenience, no matter the difficulty that such a labor demands.  It is worth it to Him to love us, and to show that love in no uncertain terms.  Kind of like the ad that says, “when you care enough to send the very best.”  That’s who God is.  That’s what God does.  God sends us Jesus.

 

A few years ago someone recorded a Christmas song called “A Strange Way to Save the World.”  Well yeah.  Sending a baby, the most vulnerable and helpless living being alive, as the hero is completely strange.  We expect our saviors to be tough, powerful, and larger than life.  And yet God sends us a hero that everyone can relate to. . . . a baby.  And it is this baby who grows up to be a simple man who changes the world, not by being tough, powerful, and larger than life, but by being humble, a servant, and Life itself.  Jesus is so completely approachable and so totally honest.  He reveals us to ourselves with clarity that is hard to face sometimes.  And yet the truth that He reveals about us does not send Him away.  He still loves us.  He still desires to save us, redeem us, heal us, fill us, love us.  Nothing could make Him not love us or want to be in our lives.  Wow. 

 

I believe that in love God is constantly looking for ways to reveal His presence to us.  This morning as I drove to the Wesley Foundation I found myself behind a yellow school bus.  There were children in the back waving excitedly to the cars behind them.  I saw them and waved back.  They were so excited!  It was as if something wonderful had happened for them in that moment.  Really I was thinking something wonderful had happened to me.  I had just been thinking of how God is so good and always looking for ways to show up in our lives.  It was as if He chose that moment to catch my attention through the exuberance of childhood and say, “See, I am here.  This is me waving at you.”  And something deep within me echoed a holy affirmation, “we are a world worth saving; I am a woman worth loving.”

 

I hope you see God wave at you today.  I hope you have holy moments of pondering a line from your favorite movie and experience it as God’s grace speaking to your heart.  I hope the baby Jesus becomes so real to you this Christmas season that you experience the power of God’s love reaching out to you in strange and wonderful ways.  No matter who you are or where you are, God is crazy about you.  You are loved.  Merry Christmas!

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Telling the Story--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Hey Everyone!

 

Here’s what’s going on: 

 

Cocoa and Christmas Clips—This Thursday we will be on South Lawn from 3-5pm giving away hot chocolate.  At 5pm we will project “Rudolf” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” onto Academic Complex.  Come and be blessed!

 

Thursday Night Free Meal & Christmas Party-- Afterwards, we will come back to the Wesley Foundation for Chinese food, we will have a Blind Santa gift exchange, and we will celebrate the season together.  Bring a $5-7 gift.  Anything you want.  And please be there, I have a special gift I want to share with you.  It’s not much, but I am so excited about it.

 

Free Lunch During Finals—Next week we will be serving lunch at the Wesley Foundation Monday through Thursday from 11am till 1pm.  Come and be fed.  Bring friends!  And let me know if you are planning to show up so I can have plenty of food.

 

Road Trip to Opryland—Also next Friday is our road trip to Nashville. We will go to Opry Mills for dinner and shopping, then see the lights at Opryland Hotel, and finally go for desert at the Cheesecake Factory.  Let me know if you are interested!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

I love stories.  It was my favorite thing about my Silly Papa.  My Grandfather could tell the best stories.  In fact, it is a part of my heritage on my mother’s side of the family.  And it’s not that we stretch the truth, it’s just that we remember big.  No matter who is telling the story, it is filled with laughter and timing and love.  And all of those things are the best gifts I have received from my Harrison heritage. 

 

The thing about Harrison stories is that there is always a lot of drama and emotion.  It is always a big thing.  And even if it isn’t a big thing, we know how to make it a big thing.  Like in the retelling of the story from this past Thanksgiving when my two young sons played “tattoo parlor” while the other cousins played outside.  Let’s just say that when mommy went shopping my youngest got painted . . . all over.  He spent the rest of the day pulling up his shirt to show everyone his belly.  Five days later he still has magic marker stains on his stomach.

 

Yet one of the things I have learned about life and the way God moves in it, is that often times God’s big stories are very different from ours.  God will often take His time in telling it, or letting it unfold.  And often it is hidden in the mundane and ordinary.  In fact, sometimes we miss the most Holy thing because we are too impatient wait for God’s ending to unfold or our eyes refuse to recognize the small tender movements of love.  But God’s story is very much alive in our own stories.  We just need to know how to look.

 

Take for instance the story of my fishing pole.  My Silly Papa loved to fish.  There is a wonderful picture of him leaning against his fishing boat hanging on my Grandma’s fridge.  But more than fishing for fish, my Grandpa loved to fish for people.  The last Thanksgiving I got to be with him his memory was quite diminished from Alzheimers.  He didn’t recognize most of our family.  And we all got tickled when he began coaching my cousin Shae about how to lead my brother Dan to the Lord.  He kept saying to her, “Now you could be the one.” And with expert fishing skills he shared with her that she had to be patient and take it slow, not to rush.  Just like fishing, leading someone to Jesus is a labor of love.

 

Two months before my Silly Papa died I had a dream.  In it he said to me, “I’m going to have to give you my rod and reel.”  I thought he meant he was going to give my husband his fishing tackle (I’m slow sometimes).  After I woke up, the Lord impressed upon me that he was leaving me his ministry of fishing for people.  Two months later I was at his funeral saying goodbye.  And of course there were wonderful stories.  We laughed and cried, and we remembered him big.  Time passed and the next year my family visited my Grandma.  While we were there sitting around telling stories, my aunt Mary asked me to tell the story of my dream.  As I did my uncle disappeared from the room.  When he came back in he was carrying a hand-built wooden case with a glass front that held a fishing pole inside.  My Grandmother had found one of Grandpa’s poles and was giving it to me.  Needless to say, I was overwhelmed.  And yes, I cried. 

 

Of course the case wasn’t quite finished.  It needed to be stained and some finishing touches.  So I gave my pole back to allow it to be finished.  You know God is like that sometimes.  He gives you a glimpse of the thing He wants to do in your life, but then you have to wait for it to be completed.  Paul says it this way:  “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).  Sometimes that day seems a long time away, but we can trust Jesus to do that good work.  He is so faithful.  It’s funny, while I was waiting for my fishing pole to be ready, Jesus has been doing a work in me so that I would be ready to use it.

 

We just got back from Texas last Saturday night.  During our visit there, in the quiet of an empty bedroom in the lake house my aunt and uncle brought out a large box housing a bubble wrapped wooden box with a glass front, holding a simple fishing pole.  It was a simple moment.  There wasn’t a lot of fanfare.  No drum rolls, no ooh’s and ah’s.  Most of the family missed it.  I don’t even know if those precious persons who gave me that incredible gift know the significance of what transpired.  I just know that the story of my fishing pole was complete.  Or at least the first chapter.  Because somehow I feel the timing is perfect, and God is saying it’s time to fish.

 

I share this story as a way of reflecting on the biggest God story we can ever know.  On a quiet night, in a cramped city, God sent forth His Son, Jesus.  Jesus was born in a stable, 400 years after the last prophet had spoken.  The world had been waiting so long for a messiah they had given up hope.  It seemed like the story would go uncompleted.  And while a choir of angels announced His arrival, it was in the middle of nowhere to a few shepherds.  Most of the people in Bethlehem slept through the most significant moment in history.  And while the circumstances were kind of weird, a baby being born to poor people in humble surroundings happens everyday.  It is quite ordinary.  Kind of like fishing poles.

 

I want to encourage you to listen for your own fishing pole story this Christmas season.  Christmas is all about the incarnation, that wonderful moment when the God who created everything becomes flesh, and dwells amoung us.  It is the coming of Immanuel, which literally means “God with us.”  Where is God with you, now, in the ordinary circumstances of your life?  Where are you surrounded by God’s holiness and may not even know it?  Where is God telling His story of hope and salvation through you?  Jesus came to us as a babe 2000 years ago.  Through his Holy Spirit He comes to us now every moment.  May God grant us the eyes to recognized His coming.

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

The Gift of Now--Wesley Foundation E-Letter (Methodist Campus Ministry)

Dear Friends,

 

Hope all of you are having a great day, and staying warm!  The weather changes so fast around here.  Before you know it we will be in heavy coats! 

 

Here is fun stuff coming up:

 

Thursday night is our regular meal and program at 6:30pm.  This will be your opportunity to share what the Wesley Foundation means to you with members of our Board of Directors.  It will also give them an opportunity to ask questions about your experience here as a student.  We will also spend some time getting ready for our Outreach program that we will do on Sunday afternoon.

 

This Sunday is our annual Thanksgiving Banquet and Outreach Program.  Please invite your families.  We will be eating a meal together as well as sharing a message of God’s grace that centers around the story of the prodigal.  Meet at the Wesley Foundation at 3:30.  Our meal will be potluck style featuring soup and appetizers. 

 

Each Christmas the Wesley Foundation takes on a project that supports a special need in our community.  This year we will be adopting the Pregnancy Support Center as a way of helping out new mothers in difficult circumstances.  Here is the cool thing:  Next week bring $5 - $10 to the Wesley on Thursday night.  We will pool everyone’s money and go shopping for baby items together!  During dinner a representative from the Pregnancy Support Center will be sharing with us about the ministry they provide to new mothers who need help, and we will have a time of prayer for this ministry and those lives it touches.  This is a wonderful way to celebrate Jesus’ birth by bringing a celebration to those who wouldn’t have one otherwise!

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

As I was running this morning I couldn’t help thinking about the last few months at my house.  Slowly I have been letting go of, giving away, all of the accumulated baby stuff from Noah and Isaiah’s first days and months.  I gotta say it has been hard.  Each time I would load something up, my heart would hurt.  Each box has been one more reminder that a season, a very special season, is over. 

 

But something else has been happening with every box that leaves.  We have more room in our house.  And I am finding that something significant is happening spiritually that mirrors what has happened physically.  Relinquishing the physical reminders of the past has made more room in my heart to embrace what is now.  This morning as we were watching “Cars” for the millionth time, Isaiah just reached over and hugged me.  I relished that precious moment.  And in a split second I realized that there would be a time when I would long for today, just as I sometimes long for those baby days.  It made me want to really be present to this “today” moment, and let nothing, not even fond memories of the past, hinder me from living it fully and joyfully now.

 

I think this is such an important principle for college students.  In this life you live so much is happening so fast.  And every six months your day to day circumstances change with your class schedule.  It can be so easy to wish for days gone by, or to long for days to come.  If you aren’t careful you have wished and longed your whole college career away without really enjoying any of it.  But when you really relish each day, soaking up the gift that it has to give, I believe the special-ness it has to impart stays with you a long after the moment is gone.

 

This is one of those foundational truths that apply everywhere.  Even in ministry.  God’s in-breaking presence is so constant that every moment is a new moment to connect with Him.  And Jesus continues to incarnate Himself (that is to become flesh) every day through brothers and sisters in Christ who allow Him access to their lives.  Truly His followers make Him manifest over and over again, every moment.  And so, while it is good to remember what God has done in our midst before, to learn from it and allow it to make us wise, we cannot become so enamored of the God thing that was that we miss the God thing that is. 

 

This is what it looks like for me in those quiet moments that I share just with Him:  I offer Him my heart, here and now, just as I am.  I ask Him to make me aware of where He is today, and that He would order my steps in this day so that I am a part of His Life unfolding within mine.  I just don’t want to miss Him.  He is everything to me.  And I trust that where He leads is definitely a place worth going.

 

So my dear friends who are also a part of His Life unfolding within you, I want to challenge you to be present to the God thing that is now.  Appreciate what has been, learn from it, cherish it, and let it be held in God’s hands.  But keep your own hand free to receive the gift of today.  You will be so happy you did!

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Dear Friends,

 

I hope all of you got a chance to vote yesterday.  It was truly a day of historic proportions.  Whether it was a woman in the White House or the election of an African American as our president, both outcomes make history.  Last week in my University Experience class we watched Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech.  Regardless of who you voted for, yesterday’s election makes me hope that Dr. King’s dream is closer to a reality.  And as one of my students shared in our small group today, even if you didn’t vote for him, our new president elect needs our prayers.  So please join me in praying on behalf of our our country, its government and its leaders:  “Our Father in Heaven, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

 

Thursday night we have our free meal and program.  We eat at 6:30pm and then afterwards we will be looking at the story of the prodigal son.  We will spend time creating skits to illustrate this truth in a fresh new way.  The best skit will be used in our Outreach ministry next spring.

 

Also, we will be having our annual Thanksgiving Banquet on Sunday, November 16^th at 3:30pm.  This is a special time when we invite all parents and friends to come to Wesley Foundation and join us for a special meal and program.   This year will be a soup and appetizer potluck.  Our Outreach ministry will provide the program and afterward we will eat.  Please let me know how many of your family will be attending! 

 

Now For Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Sometimes in my quiet time I take out an old journal and peruse its pages.  Sometimes I am looking for something specific because a current experience mirrors a previous one, and I know God gave me wisdom before that could be beneficial now.  Sometimes I am completely led by a nudge that says, “Look here,” or “read this.”  Sometimes I stand amazed at how deftly God weaves together a message to sooth my heart when I least expect it.

 

So I open up to 11/29/01.  Here’s what I find:

 

Dear Father, I long for You, and in my longing faith and doubt dance, each engaging the other at deeper levels until the two collapse in exhaustion and all that is left is silence.  Father, the call to intimate connection with You is constant, yet it comes so quietly.  What does connection with You mean?  We are together, Your life filling up my life, my life utterly dependent upon Yours to be sustained.  I am ashamed of how easily my attention is diverted.  Yet You are constant.  I reach for You beyond feelings.  You are here.  You love me.  You are working on my behalf.  You are within me bringing forth the new life I prayed for.  My waiting is not in vain; it will be fulfilled.  I am Yours.  I trust You.  You are all of those things which I am not.  Perfect in wisdom.  Perfect in love.  Perfect in mercy.  Perfect in forgiveness.  You are everything good and pure and whole.

 

The thing I love about old age is the perspective of time, and the gentle gift of wisdom that comes.  On that day in November so many years ago, I was heart sick over my own poverty and confusion.  I felt so lost in my own brokenness.  Today I can see how gently God’s mercy healed the broken parts of me, and I am so thankful.  But believe it or not (and those of you who know me well believe it) I am still very poor in spirit, and still have moments when I am confused.  At that time in my life I assumed that maturing in God would fix those things, that magically I would become a different kind of person. 

 

Well what I can say is that God’s mercy has healed my broken-heartedness in ways I could not have imagined.  And yet God’s healing has not changed me into some other kind of person.  Instead, God’s mercy has taught me the all-sufficiency of His love applied to my need.  So now instead of being discouraged or distraught by my deep need of Him, I simply bring those feelings with me to prayer and tell Him all about it.  And I do it with an expectation that He will be able to bring something beautiful out of my deep need.  He has done it time and time before:  my desperation is nothing compared to His ability and desire to redeem it.  He always brings something good out of my pain and ineptness.  I am so convinced of His ability to use my weakness for His glory that I no longer worry that weakness is often the only thing I really have to offer.  I may not be impressive by any standards.  Just trusting. 

 

This is the scripture that challenges and sustains me:  “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.  They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.  It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8).  And here is why I share it:  I know many of you have faith and doubt dancing within you even as you read these words.  In fact it may feel less like a dance and more like a wrestling match, each one struggling to topple the other.  And instead of collapsing, the two are colliding, making a shambles of your inner life.  “What inner life?” you say.  I know.  Sometimes the noise and confusion becomes so unbearable that it is easier to drown out the struggle by ignoring it, plugging in the iPod, becoming buried in Facebook, or texting incessantly on the iPhone.  Yet there in that deep part of you the grace of God is speaking.  God’s word to your heart is, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakeness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). 

 

So be encouraged dear ones.  God loves you and is ready to take everything you offer Him and transform it by His glory.  Whatever that burden on your heart is, when you allow Him unmitigated access to it, He changes it and builds His kingdom through it.  You can trust Him to fulfill it.  Just like the song says:  “Something beautiful, something good.  All my confusion, He understood.  All I had to offer Him, was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful of my life.”

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami 

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu

 

Be a child today! Wesley Foundation E-letter (Methodist Student Center)

 

Dear Friends,

 

Hope you are doing well this fine October day.  It seems to be too hot to be Autumn, but the trees have begun to change and fall is in the air, even if only briefly.  We do have some fun things going on this week, so take a look!

 

Tonight is worship at 6:30 pm.  Come and join us!

 

Thursday we will be having a cookout and movie night on South Lawn!  This will be so much fun.  We will gather around 5pm, grill some burgers and dogs, watch some fun and frivolous movies, listen to Kyle and Justin play their guitars, and generally unwind and relax. 

 

Fall Retreat is this weekend.  Gather at the Wesley Foundation on Friday at 4pm.  We will have all kinds of outdoor adventures.  And some sweet relaxation Jesus time too.  Go deep!  Go bold!  Go to Loucon!  Cost is $40, which can be paid this weekend.  Financial help is available if needed.  Don’t let the cost keep you from going!  Please email me if you are interested in joining us.  I do have several openings available.

 

Now for Sami’s Ramblings About Jesus:

 

Yesterday I drove to Nashville to see my spiritual director.  It is one of those monthly pilgrimages I make to keep my spirit.  To keep it in all manner of senses.  Like to keep it so I don’t lose it.  To keep it so I remember it’s there.  To keep it, as in upkeep and maintaining its vitality.  To keep it fresh and available.  To keep it as sacred space in the craziness of my life.  It’s my way of remembering my first call, to be a child of God, that is the foundation for every other call upon my life.  Sometimes I get them confused.

 

Yesterday in particular I needed that reminder, that I am a child of God.  Not a servant of God (although I do earnestly try to serve Him).  But a child.  His child.  I should have had a clue that I was forgetting this last week when someone said something about giving the message, “God loves you,” to people and as I heard it tears filled my eyes.  I know so keenly how deeply He loves everybody else.  I forget so easily that He loves me, that I am included in His love.

 

And so I made my pilgrimage to Nashville, the Mecca of Methodism, the home of my spiritual director.  We spoke as we often do of balance.  Usually I come in with a hunger for silence and a deep complaint from my heart that there just hasn’t been enough.  But yesterday was different.  I had been regular about quiet times, attentive to God’s Holy Spirit leading, seeing God unfold His plan in a way only He could do.  The problem was not about being more “spiritual.”  It was in fact about being more of a child.  In a moment of recognition I finally realized God was not asking for more and harder work.  He was asking me to play.

 

Here these words of wisdom from writer Michael Joseph: 

 

We live in a serious world.  For too many of us, work is competitively cut-throat, social expectations are high, parenting is a burden, and marriage is a project.  Religion is solemn and our “recreation” is largely of the spectator variety.  If this isn’t enough, we project our success-driven and labor-based ethic onto children, pressuring them—albeit inadvertently—to learn, achieve, and succeed almost from infancy.  Is it any wonder that we become bored, tire, and frustrated by life and our children become candidates for depression at an early age?

 

Why do we live this way?  Is it perhaps because we’ve forgotten the importance of play?  We stake too much of our personal value and dignity on what we do and accomplish.  We overorganize and overanalyze our lives.  In the process we forget that life is a gift as well as a task.  If we are to enjoy this gift and truly live our lives, we’d best learn to play authentically once again.

 

From ­Play Therapy

 

By simply changing some of the scenarios, this so perfectly depicts the pressures and obligations of college life.  Everyone seems over analyzed and over organized.  We all need a break and are deathly afraid of taking one.  Now I am all for responsibility.  So please do, be responsible.  Turn in your assignments.  Be a good student.  But in the midst of it all don’t forget to get some fresh air.  Take a break.  Laugh.  Practice the spiritual discipline of joy.  God’s word for it is Sabbath.  It is so important He made it one of the top ten.  And we reap the consequences from disregarding this commandment as much as when we break the other nine.  Is it any wonder we are a prozac nation? 

 

You are God’s precious child.  He wants you to know that.  He wants you to rest in His goodness.  He wants you to trust Him.  And learning to enjoy life as gift is a true act of faith.  As Michael Joseph says, “Consider playfulness as a gift from heaven.  After all, only people with faith can play.  Others must work and worry.” 

 

So take time to love and laugh.  Take time to enjoy the life God has given you with a childlike heart.  Play.  And enjoy by entering into the joy of the One who gave your life to you.

 

“Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these’” (Matthew 19:14).

 

This is me trusting,

 

Sami

 

 

 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Wesley Foundation Weekly E-Letter List go to:

http://lists.wku.edu/mailman/listinfo/wesley

 

Sami Wilson

Campus Minister/Director

WKU Wesley Foundation

United Methodist Campus Ministry

270-842-2880

sami.wilson@wku.edu