Day 3: My name's not Ben

Between services at church today I used Ben's "welcome, first time visitor!" coupon to get a free latte in the lobby. I, of course, had used mine the moment I got it back in October, but Ben put his in his pocket and forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago he dug it up when we were getting our jackets dry-cleaned and gave it to me. I didn't want to be suspicious and enter myself as a first-time visitor twice, so I put Ben's information on the card. The barista asked, "Is this you?" (side note: is "barista" the only profession for a male that sounds so girlie?).

Well, I had been thinking about how when my parents were in town they got the coupons and gave them to me and how if I was going to use them I shouldn't put my name in twice - that was dishonest - but if I put my parent's names down then they would probably be getting random emails or newsletters from this church in Colorado which of course they wouldn't want... so should I just put down a fake name? Man, Lisa, how sketchy are you? Isn't trying to scam a church latte cart the lowest you can go? Maybe I should just throw them out...

So anyway, with my parents on my mind I said, "No, that's my dad. Wait, no, that's my husband. He doesn't like coffee." The barista looked very confused.

We finished up an 8-week series on Moses this Sunday - very excellent. If you're looking for good sermon podcasts you can find these at http://www.pulpitrock.com/weekly/audio.html . Our discussion group is also over for now. It's definitely been a good way to meet some people at the church!

The rest of the day I did some errands, cleaned for another 4.5 hours - our place this time! - and took a hike. The cleaning was mostly maintenance since we hadn't done much after moving 2 weeks ago, but some of it was still cleaning up after the previous owner. I decided not to neglect these things in the process of unpacking... so many boxes sit unopened, but the townhouse is spotless!

The hike was lovely. I'm beginning to really appreciate Colorado Spring's beauty, not just the easy things like the mountains, blue skies and snow but the hard things, like scraggly yellow grasses and scrub pines, red dirt and even the sun's glare. It all fits together wonderfully. My realtor had recommended the trail I took today and once I thought "wouldn't it be funny to run into her?" as I walked. On the way back, low and behold who but she appeared jogging along! We hadn't talked since buying the townhouse 6 weeks ago, so we caught up a bit :)

And, I prayed. I realize that my relationship with God, like any relationship, has fallen into some bad habits and patterns and that the more I fail at certain things, the less optimistic I am about them ever changing. In this way my walk with Christ is becoming more complicated, so I prayed, "What do I do now?" I was reassured for now by the beauty around me and by the life of Moses.

Heh, now that Ben's not around this blog is getting the day's review instead :)