Y is for Yikes

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Matthew 11:29-30 (NIV1984)

²⁹ Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, 

for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  

³⁰ For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Taking Photos while driving - not recommended!

Ha - my concordance on my phone lists four topics for "y"- all compelling I might add.
Yarn, Year, Yoke, Young Men. So I think I might just tell you about my road trip.
We finally got on the road about 4 and arrived at our destination about 11:30pm

I drove the first part of our journey while Ryan snored in the front seat and Rob had turned my back seat into a mobile office. We stopped once at McDonalds and then again a bit later stop at this very quiet restaurant for dinner. We walked in and it was like walking in to a library. Hushed and silent - well it was till we arrived. The waitress comes and greets us at the door and invites us to sit wherever we like. To which our pastoral intern responds, by walking up to some young couple sitting quietly at a table and speaking to each other in whispers. He turns and tells the very short young waitress  " Ok I want to sit here" and then says to the couple, "Can you please move." After that everyone was laughing and the place no longer felt like a library. I think the waitress was actually relieved to have a break from the quiet.  So I suppose my Ryan story counts for young men.

The drive from Spokane to Mount Vernon Washington on the Seattle side of the state requires driving up over and through the Cascade mountain range. Its a lovely drive in good weather. Our weather for most of our drive was drizzly rain. Thankfully we changed drivers after dinner and Ryan who tells me he likes driving takes over. I think he liked driving until we got to driving conditions that reminded me of the scenes in Star Trek where the ship takes off and goes into light speed. For miles we drove through this blinding warp speed like snow, sleet, rain and toss in a bit of fog for good measure. Of course the lines on the road are just a suggestion. I think the state of Washington must save millions conserving on line marking paint. Ryan did a great job at white knuckle driving.

My Quiet Room

So we got to the hotel and the guys were booked 3 to a room and I would have had a room mate but she had a conflict and was not able to come on the trip. So I have a lovely room all to myself. I realized that I am not really used to being alone. I do plenty of things alone and I wake up early to find quiet space but I always have dogs, kids and family members around. So I found myself kind of wandering around my lovely large room all by myself. It was quite nice, just a different kind of quiet and alone than I am used to. It was late so I decided to call it a night.

The Library where I am writing this post.

Today the guys have headed to a ministerium meeting and I have about an hour to kill in the church library before the women's meetings that I am to attend begins. I've not been to these meetings before so I'm not sure what to expect and only have a fuzzy idea of where I'm supposed to be when. My plan is to just kind of go with the flow. I'm sure I'll be brought up to speed soon enough. For now I have found a quiet place to write. I even have the internet password which makes working on this post so much easier.

The morning women's meeting was good and and the facilitator Lenore asked the question what do women in your church need beyond the basic little black dress. She then had us get into groups and gave us post it notes to write down our ideas. Then the ideas were sorted on to a wall. Here are some of the stickies  - I suppose I have to agree with those who wrote coffee and chocolate.  There were a small number of ones that talked about bible study, prayer, spiritual growth. The overwhelming number of sickies were things that were very relational.


Then we had lunch and then another set of meetings where the topic was Enneagrams. In a nut shell it was t tool to help you discover your personality. Can't say I totally understand it at this point but I got a book to read to try and figure it out. I guess I'll get back to you on that one. It was interesting.

Then there was dinner and a large group service. They had a Russian worship team that was pretty good and a choir and a guy that could really play the pipe organ well.

Then out with our group to kind of un wind from our day of meetings.

Now I am back at the hotel and should really go to bed because I need to get up and be out the door by 6 am if I want to go and take photos of the blooming tulip fields. Then we have more meetings and lunch.  The we head to another church for a different meeting before heading back on the 6 hour drive home. Some time in there I am suppose to speak for 2 minutes about the transformation of our church.  - I'm kind of taking things as they happen. I actually planned out what I want to say - but who knows what will actually come out of my mouth. Generally when I speak the Lord gives me the words to say in the moment.

Yikes and we are supposed to be awake for church on Sunday  - not sure what that's gonna look like.

So yikes what a day and what an adventure. Yikes we are almost done with this A-Z challenge. It has certainly been fun.

Let me pray for you and then call it a night.

Prayer
Dear Lord,
I pray that your peace would come upon those who are reading. I pray that you would quiet their spirits in this moment and allow them to hear your voice. I pray Lord that you would help each reader to know you more fully and that you would walk with them.  May they find joy and peace as they spend time in your presence. Help them rise up with faith to carry on and courage to make the changes you are calling them to make in their life. Give insight and inspiration and direction for the next steps in their journey with you.