Staff Day

We just had a annual staff day where we close the office, get away from the phones, and look ahead to the new year. Here is what I got out of it, I really like our staff! What a blessing it is to like, love, and respect the people that you work with. We had a time during the day where we all shared some things from our personal life and spent time praying about those things. What I learned is what we all know, that we all are battered, bruised, and scarred from this battleground of life. We come to work at CFS with a passion and a mission to help the hopeless and the helpless, but we also come with our own burdens and baggage. We have stress, health concerns, families to worry about, financial concerns, the list goes on. We come to work as people wanting to help and needing help ourselves. Jesus once said to Peter, "Satan has come and demanded permission to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you that your faith will not fail, but when you do fail, turn and strengthen your brothers". The call of this life is not to avoid failure because we can't. The call of this life is to do something with our failure. It is what we do here at CFS. We help the fallen, because we are the fallen.

My best Christmas moment.

Despite all the hassle and hubbub (is that a real word?) of the Christmas season, I found a moment that made all the work worth it. It was the afternoon of Christmas day. We had a big breakfast with our family plus Grandma and Grandpa from Arkansas, and we had finished with opening all the presents. There was a moment of calm, and my daughter, Madeline, realized she had forgotten her surprise that she had been telling me about. Her school allows the kids to "shop" on site for presents for their families. Items are donated, and the children pick out gifts for their parents and siblings. Volunteers then wrap the items for the kids to take home for Christmas. So on this day, she suddenly remembered her gifts and ran upstairs to get them. She passed out the gifts to her family. I got some golf balls. She gave her mom some cookie cutters, her little sister a book, and her brother got a hot wheels car that was probably his favorite toy of Christmas. Each gift was perfectly tailored to the one receiving it. I was filled with joy watching her give these good gifts to those she loved, and I teared up a bit when I realized that this was a small step on her journey to become just like her Father.