Oh, come on. You know you've got something like that somewhere in your house. Maybe it's not a sweater from your great-aunt, but maybe it's a knick-knack or present from some relative that you knew as soon as you saw it that you'd never use it and you've been looking for a way to get rid of it ever since. Truth be told, I've got several of those lying around somewhere - we all do.

And that's what makes the Rummage Sale so fascinating. I spent most of my day Friday and again Saturday morning at the Rummage Sale. Now, I've seen some church Rummage Sales before, but never one that took over the entire building and took a week to set up. But, as vast as this one at LUMC was, it didn't fail the test; a lot of the things I saw fit perfectly into the description above. I can't tell you how many t-shirts and sweaters and games and puzzles I saw that I thought, "Wow, were they colorblind? Did they not know as they knitted that sweater that their grandchild would get beat up for wearing it? Didn't they know that game hasn't been cool since 1987?"

I leafed through shirts and old shoes, books and shellacked records (do you know what a record is? Or how a shellacked record is different than a vinyl?), and saw so much, well, junk. And don't you know, there were people lined up at 7:30 am just to buy cart-loads of that junk. Smelly ol' shoes? Broken suitcases? Just junk. People lined up to buy boxes and boxes of junk.

...but that's kind of like what Jesus Christ did for us. Paul writes in his letter to Christians in Rome: "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." I think the key part of this phrase are the words "still sinners". Why these? Well, because "sinners" talks about the very nature of who we were- the driving force behind what we used to be. Without Christ's death and resurrection, we would've remained these hopeless creatures who constantly sinned. We'd be like that crusty sweater from your great-aunt: intended for good, but all dirty and nasty from what we've done and where we've been. But even when we were junk, Christ paid for us. The fact that we were broken and messed up didn't put God off- we didn't have to do anything to earn His affection. He didn't care if we screwed up, He wanted to have a relationship with us. He didn't care if we were a crusty ol' sweater, He wanted to buy us anyway. That's pretty amazing. That's powerful! That's love. Unconditional, undeserved, but phenomenal love.

There's this great song that I first heard when I was a junior in high school. It's called "Dandelions", and it's by a now-defunct Christian band called Five Iron Frenzy. I think it says a lot about how God views us. It doesn't say we're perfect, 'cause we're not. We are sinners in need of saving. But, it shows how God sees us compared to how others might judge us, or how we sometimes see ourselves.

Embarrassing Story #2

Yes, it's that time again- another embarrassing story about Kevin!

This little tale once again comes from my early childhood, when I was living along the Erie Canal in Chittenango, NY. (Wow, I'm starting to sound like my mother. For as long as I can remember, she would always tell stories that began with, "When I was a little girl back in Ohio..." ...wow.) So I was like, four or five, and I was supposed to be sleeping one night.

But I wasn't. For some reason, I couldn't fall asleep. I'm not sure what it was that kept me from going to sleep, since it couldn't have been too early (7:30, 8pm?). Perhaps it was watching some strange cartoons, like Banana Man. Wait... you don't know Banana Man? ...well, that's okay. (Kids these days!) Anyway... I couldn't fall asleep for the longest time, but eventually I did.

I wish I hadn't. I had such a hard time falling asleep that I didn't have a normal dream: I had a nightmare. All I know is that it was dark - like I was in some huge warehouse that was pitch black except for a single, small spotlight shining in the middle. So I was surrounded by darkness, and began to walk toward this little light. And I remember feeling creeped out: I felt like there was an orchestra nearby that was playing that kind of freaky, "Someone's going to come up behind you!" music. But no one did.

Then I saw it. As I came closer to this place where the spotlight was, and the creepy music got louder, I saw it. The... the... the biggest hamburger I'd ever seen in my entire life!!! It was massive: several stories high, way bigger than I could ever hope eat in my lifetime. It seemed so foreboding- as if it could do something to harm me; I was terrified. But what was I to do? There was no hope that I could fit any piece of it in my mouth! I was only five! I was going to be killed by this giant hamburger and there was nothing I could do to stop it! It was hopeless, simply hopeless.

And that's when I woke up, crying. I ran downstairs where my parents were watching TV. I was sobbing and started babbling to them about my dream, where this giant hamburger was trying to kill me and I COULDN'T FIT IT IN MY MOUTH!!! ....well, as I mentioned in my last story, my parents were great and were probably stifling their laughter as best they could, and just did their best to comfort me and convince me that I wasn't going to die, least of all at the hands of a giant hamburger.

Ahhhhh. Parents are so comforting.



Keep checking back here for the next embarrassing story: "Being A Geek At A Young Age"