Wildflower Writes

I was pulling into my driveway, just returning from a last minute shopping trip. I still didn’t have all the ingredients I needed to make a broccoli salad for Easter dinner and I had picked up some Puffs, decongestant and Vitamin Water to treat my nasty cold. It occurred to me, in bailing on most of my plans to go into a Benadryl-induced coma, I wasn’t going to have time to buy an Easter outfit or got a haircut before Sunday morning. I felt like such a loser. What kind of Easter was this going to be, anyway? I hadn’t made time to color eggs or buy Easter outfits for my kids prior to our Spring break trip. I hadn’t participated with Lent, Maundy Thursday, or Good Friday services. Our choir cantata was taking place the next weekend, since part of the choir was gone on vacations as well. The color of my nose would suggest celebrating another holiday as a certain reindeer. My kids weren’t even going to be home until the wee hours of the morning. Just another Sunday, I guess. As I...

I heard a great illustration at Youth Convention last year. Jarrod Jones was our speaker and he said, “You shouldn’t make God first in your life.” ( http://www.jarrodjones.com ). What? My whole life I had been trying to make God first in my life. When I was 13, at a youth convention far far away, the speaker asked, “What is most important to you?” My answer was “softball.” “As a Christian, Christ should be the most important thing in your life.” That moment changed my life. I had been living what I thought was a Christian life. I didn’t cheat in school. I was nice to most people. I worked hard at volleyball and basketball and track and softball. I attended church and Sunday school and youth group and even volunteered in the nursery. Ever since then I had striven to make God first. And now this speaker is telling me not to do that? “God should be the focus of your life.” He went on to describe a picture, with a circle labeled “Jesus” as the center. From that circle c...