Wendi {at random}

Today was my turn to share in morning devotions at school. So lately I have been checking out my favorite online devotionals and blogs in search of a something of significance to share. Of course, there are a few requirements on my part to make it Say It Out Loud Worthy.

1) It needs to be shortish.
2) It needs to be a little light, but not irreverent.
3) It needs to have a tiny tad of humor built in. Because God created laughter, after all.

And so after searching far and wide, I found this post from Tracie Miles of the Proverbs 31 Ministries - I Know Him!



Immediately, I fell in love with the Elf clip, and I knew I had stumbled onto something. But, was it God-worthy? I read her blog entry that went with it, and totally felt it at the beginning, but then I lost the momentum when I got to her dream sequence. It was a great dream, yeah, but it wasn't my dream. It's hard to translate enthusiasm for another's dream when I have to make it sound real and poignant and worthy.

So I started searching for Bible passages about enthusiasm. There are a few, to be sure, but I didn't find anything that would completely say what I was trying to capture. Picture this - every time someone says "Santa" in the clip, say "Jesus". That's what I was going for.

In the end, I prayed at bedtime, asking God to give me something. When I woke up, I found on my printer the first part of Tracie's post, the part before the dream. The part where I was right there with her, longing for the enthusiasm of Elf/Buddy. Yes, I know I printed it out before I went to bed, but I also had printed out a whole bunch of other pages from a whole bunch of other blogs. But this morning, when I was walking out the door, this was the one that was on top of the stack. It was like God said, "Hey, use this, Wendi. It's worthy. It's short. It's light but reverent. And I like reverent. And it's funny. I like funny. That's why I make your hair look like it does when you wake up."

I practically skipped to devotions, laptop in hand, ready to share. I'm so glad I had the sense to pray about this last night. It's so hard to tell what I'd have shared had I left it up to me.

So I leave you with the thought for the day: Every time you hear the name SANTA on the Elf clip, think JESUS. If someone told you he was going to show up at 10 a.m. for pictures with children, would you just totally scream,

"JEEEEEESUUUUUUUUUUUUS, JEEEEEEEEEEEEEUUUUUUUUUUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I KNOOOOW HIM!!!!!!!
I KNOOOOOOOOW HIM!!!!!!!!!
YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!