On May 28, 2010 Brad and I were blessed with our second child, Simon Bradley. I was fortunate to have 11 weeks at home for a maternity leave. For about 2 ½ months I got to be a stay-at-home mom to Simon and Stanley (2). And let me tell you…while I LOVED being home with the boys….it was WORK. I would like to say I loved every minute of it, but the truth is there were days when I found comfort knowing “this is temporary!” I regularly would ask God for an extra dose of patience. Every now and then I was a super mom and had dinner ready when Brad got off of work. But it was a full day just keeping the kids fed and their bottoms clean without having to be concerned with feeding Brad or myself.

Many of our wonderful alumni are stay-at-home moms. Their days consist of taking care of kids, shopping and preparing food, keeping up with laundry and dishes, cutting coupons and finding the best deals at CVS. To stay sane they arrange “play dates” and take advantage of toddler time at the local library. These women are ON and GOING all day. And I whole-heartedly admire them!

I COULD be a FT stay-at-home mom…but I’m so grateful for my ministry at the Campus House. I am now divided in my purpose of being a good mom & wife and being an effective campus minister. I know I was made for both of these jobs and I feel like I am a better mom because of my ministry at CCH. At the same time, I hope that my role as a mother adds another layer of ministry at CCH.

I always thought I’d want to be a stay-at-home mom. Maybe I will down the road…I don’t know. But for now…I love doing it all. While I’m more busy, I feel like I’m a better mom and a more focused disciple. Coming back to work (besides getting less sleep) is, indeed, more restful.

So for all you girls out there who want to be stay-at-home moms… finish your degree and pursue your career until you have children, not only to have a backup plan in case your husband dies, but just in case you find yourself wanting to work outside the home because you love your job and, perhaps, to have a break from those precious little ones!

Here I sit in my office on what I consider to be a very unique day. Today, Wednesday, August 18th marks, in essence, the borderline between the end of Summer break and the beginning of our Fall Semester and new school year. Today is our “COM Day.” We are meeting all day with our new COM members (student leaders) to prepare ourselves for what is to come over the next few days. Tomorrow is Thursday—freshman move-in day—and that is when this town begins to reel in a whirlwind of craziness. There will be traffic jams, and long lines at all the stores and restaurants. Parents will be frantically looking for places to park while they unload their student’s belongings and move him or her into their residence hall. Students will be scurrying to textbook rental, and all the other important last minute appointments they must make to get fully settled in to the new school year. Yes, the theme of Thursday will be “chaos.”

More importantly for us… Thursday is the first day of “BASH WEEK” as we kick off the new school year with a free “Ice Cream Social” Thursday evening for all the new and returning students. My prayer is that Thursday’s theme for us here at the Campus House will be “hope.” That is, hope for a great year of ministry to the students of EIU. Hope for God to work through us with a heart of outreach. Hope that God will use this ministry for the next nine months to challenge and change the hearts of young people who will eventually become the “movers and shakers” of this culture.

And I will take “hope” over “chaos” any day.

Have you ever been to some sort of event that is just massive? Last week was the start of the Worlds Greatest Aviation Celebration, as dubbed by the website. Airventure 2010, or Oshkosh is a gathering of literally thousands of airplanes and hundreds of thousands of people from literally around the world. They all in one city and all at one location during this event. Airventure is put on by a well known Aviation organization called Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA).

I had the opportunity to take a last minute trip to Airventure this last weekend. I have been before, but this time I was going solo, all by myself. I spent the two days I was there, about twelve hours a day, walking around Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh Wisconsin. I found myself looking at several thousand airplanes, checking into exhibits that were setup, and talking with fellow aviators. I love going to this event because of the mass amounts of aviation related stuff that there is on one airports property! As of Saturday morning, I had heard that there were 9,400 airplanes alone on the property and daily attendance records had been around 105,000 people a day.

What I found to be one of the best parts of being at Airventure by myself, was the solitude. I found myself getting to the airport grounds sometime around 7:15 or 7:30 both mornings. The grounds opened at 7am, but the exhibit booths and most of the airplanes for tour don’t open until 9am. Also at 7:30am, there are maybe only 5,000 people on the property, so in reference to the way it looks the rest of the day, it’s almost a ghost town.

I found this time to be a great time to think. Both Mornings I was there, I found myself sitting on the ground someplace, typically near an airplane, just taking it all in. This was a chance for me to sit and reflect on my scripture reading from the night before. I have found that reflection on scripture is a good way to help you remember scripture. I also found myself using this a time of personal worship. Now I wasn’t carrying a guitar with me,but I used worship music on my Ipod to help me with this.

On my arrival one morning I found that the weather had been bad through the night, and it was just starting to clear off. The ground was damp from the night’s rain, and the clouds were low and the smell of aircraft exhaust filled the air (probably something only a pilot would love). This particular moment I took a minute to just stop and remember the creator, the one who created everything I was looking at. The tree I was leaning on, the clouds in the sky, and the airplane in front of me. He created it all in some way or another, and yet it was simply beautiful.

Do any of you have a special time or favorite place that you like to spend time reflecting on scripture? How about a special place that reminds you of a specific piece of scripture? If so I’d like to hear about it. Let me know about it in a comment.

I recently taught on Colossians 3:18-4:1, and one of the main points Paul talks about is not working towards men, but working unto the Lord. In this passage Paul is speaking to slaves working for their masters. But how does that apply to us today? Well, it gives us a model for how we should work, and not even on the job, but at everything that we do, because Paul says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” (vs23)

One thing I noticed while studying this passage was that Paul keeps trying to get the slave to put their focus heavenward, not on earthly things...which I think is the key to working at everything for the Lord. We have to changed our perspective of things. We aren’t working to get a paycheck or whatever else it may be; we are working for the Lord. It is not man that we are serving.

I think too often we separate our Spiritual life and work life, when really it should be brought together because we are serving Christ through our work. For many of you who might be reading this the work that you do is school work...and that should be done unto the Lord as well, Paul said “everything”! And even if it is a subject you hate or a job you don’t like, you are not exempt. Take a look at Colossians 3:18-4:1 and start changing your perspective. And it isn’t just when people are looking... “not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.” (Vs 22)

Cast your gaze heavenward and do not work for man or earthly things. Work at everything for the Lord, doing your best for your Lord and Savior!