Heading out

I'm leaving town for the weekend, and I don't think I'm taking my laptop with me, so it'll probably be quiet around here for a few days.

Jason Upton is playing a conference in Red Deer. I've been looking forward to this all year. A whole group of us, staying at the home of some dear friends in Gull Lake, hanging out, praying and worshiping together.

I'm taking one of my youth kids along with me. Pray for us, would you please? This is a girl with some pretty big stuff going on in her life right now. Scary stuff. Hard stuff. Good stuff too. I arranged to just have her in my car on the way up. Two hours to just catch up, debrief the week a little before going into the weekend.

Pray for me, too. I tend to neglect myself in order to care for others, and the young woman I'm taking with me needs a lot of care right now. I'm really asking Jesus for the wisdom to know when to step back and allow myself to be ministered to, to receive, to go to the deep places.

I'm getting my nose pierced this afternoon. Meeting Kari in Red Deer, and the three of us (her, me, and my youth girl) are going together to the piercing place. I'm a huge fan of the whole "marker stone" concept. I like really physical things that remind me of the important God moments in my life. My bedroom is full of things like that - artwork, photos, stones, candles, and so on. I want to mark the healing that Jesus gave me two years ago with a physical reminder on my body - so I'm piercing my nose. I want to be reminded every time I look in the mirror of the work of healing and redemption that Jesus has worked in my life.

My baby brother is having surgery at this moment, and he's heavily on my mind and in my prayers. They're trying to correct a problem that has prevented him from playing his guitar for the last year. Pray for him, too, if you think of it. I'll call home from Red Deer tonight to find out how things went.

I picked up my rental car a little while ago. Red. Mazda 6. Managed to figure out how to adjust the seat up - when I first got in I thought I was going to have to sit on a pillow to do the driving today - I couldn't see over the steering wheel properly! (the many disadvantages of being 5 foot 2!)

Need to finish packing, and head out to do some errands before I pick up my youth girl and head out for the weekend!

See you Sunday or Monday!