My nightmare

So the other night I had the weirdest dream. Actually, it was one of those dreams you have just before you wake up in the morning. Anyways, in my dream I was still living at my parents place (weird!), and I was just getting ready to leave for work @ 12:00 (I was on the evening shift). I went out the back door and saw the most amazing scene in front of me. Our backyard had somehow been transformed into the most beautiful fall scene I had ever gazed upon. I knew this only meant one thing: I HAD to take some pictures before I went to work. God was obviously looking favorably upon me that day :) In my dream I was confused because I knew it was early winter, and I couldn't figure out how the trees had got their leaves back. But it didn't matter, there was a flaming maple tree, a golden elm tree, various colorful little shrubberies, and the bluest sky ever. It was absolutely perfect. I ran back inside to get my camera. I started shooting, and was horrified to find that all my lenses were so dirty that there was no way I could get a decent picture. I tried to blow the junk off. No luck. Tried a brush. Nope. Tried a cloth and lens cleaner. Not a chance. Theses lenses were not coming clean.
By now I'm in panic mode. Not only am I not able to take the shot of the year, I am nearly late for work. I could feeling my blood pressure rising to a nasty level, and my mind was racing to come up with a solution. I could not. I woke up in a cold sweat.
Well, I may not be Joseph, but I think I kinda figured out the dream. The part about the picture was irrelevant...I dream about things like that all the time. The dirty lens was because I have had a few dust specs on the sensor of my camera for a while now. I am waiting for some stuff I ordered to clean it, but every picture I take, I have to edit out a few little black spots.
The part about being late for work was my body's way of trying to tell me to wake up. I had slept in past my alarm (which I rarely do) and although I still had plenty of time to get ready for work, I got up a lot later than I normally do.
Weird.
I love dreams. They get you so hyped up. Everything is always taken to the extreme. People are never just mad at you, they try to kill you. You never just fall, you fall for like 100 feet, or forever. And when you can run super fast, or fly, it's so good, you never want to wake up.
Good stuff.

Mercy & Forgiveness

Last night someone showed me something real. Something that blew my socks off.

After Celebration Night I gave Liane a ride home, and the went inside to talk to her dad about his truck that I hit on sunday night. With Liane interpreting, I told him I was sorry, and that I would pay for it. His reply was something like "alles forgessen" which to my limited understanding of German means "all is forgotten". I didn't know what to say. I said 'no, I hit your truck, I'll pay for it'. He said it again, 'alles forgessen'.

It is truly a humbling thing to receive mercy. In my pride, I would have rather heard him say 'ok, you can pay for it'.

This is exactly how we are toward God. When Jesus was crucified, he cried out "It is finished" meaning he had taken care of the debt we owe God because of our sin. But in an effort to keep our pride intact, we would rather say to him "that's great, but I know you don't really mean it, so I'll do all these good things for you, and then you can accept that as payment for my sin".
Wrong-o! That defeats the whole point of his gift as one of mercy...not receiving the punishment we should have.

Well, I don't think I will ever forget what Mr. Nikel said to me. Hopefully I can be just as gracious to those around me. I couldn't help thinking 'what would I have done in his shoes?' My car doesn't mean a lot to me, so it would be easy for me to say 'no big deal...don't worry about it'...but what if it was something I cared a lot about, like my guitar, my bike, my camera...or my family?

How do we forgive someone who has hurt us big time? I think the only thing we can do is remember what it cost God to forgive us. It cost him his son.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." - John 3:16 & 17

On another note, Celebration Night was awesome. They had the place all lit up with candles, and it was all accoustic...just Ryan on guitar, Heather on piano, and Davis on the hand drum. It was really cool. Someone read something that really got me thinking, but I don't have time to write about it now, so maybe tomorrow.

The weather was so gorgeous yesterday, I decided to sleep outside. So I set up the tent on the deck, and got all snuggled up in a few sleeping bags. It was great! I miss summer.

photo by Warren Thiessen Copyright 2004

What a Day!

Sunday was quite the day for me. We had some nasty weather saturday and sunday...strong wind, freezing rain, snow, you name it. At night the wind was gusting over 100 km/hr. So I slept with the window open. At 4 a.m. the wind was so loud I woke up and thought to myself..."self, how often do you have 100 km/hour winds?". So I went for a walk. It was pretty awesome. The huge trees across the street from my house were rocking back and forth so violently that if I had climbed them, I think they could have launched me right into Reinfeld.
And so it began.
The plan for college and career that evening was to go to the Dueck's place in Altona. But the roads were extremely icy. I could have skated to church in the morning. But, not being one to give up easily, and prone to any sort of adventure, I figured I'd at least drive part of the way to Altona in the afternoon, to check out the roads. Turns out the highways were fine. Coming home I saw a decent sunset. Went home and grabbed my camera gear and found a neat shot with some flags in the foreground. I parked my car and set up my tripod on top of the car. The top of my car was covered in ice though, and the wind was still probably 70 km/hr, which made it rather difficult to get a shot off without the tripod sliding off of the car.
Well, people started showing up at my place at 6:20...we only needed to take two vehicles to Altona. Liane was the first one here, and she asked if we were taking my car, because her dad didn't want her to take the Jimmy. No problem...I was planning on taking my car anyway. So we're ready to go...I've got all the emergency stuff in the trunk in case we hit the ditch. But I really don't foresee any problems...we'd just take it slow if the roads get bad. So we take off from the driveway...I'm driving slow 'cause my driveway and the road are icy, and I didn't want to hit the ditch (I live on a gravel road in town, so there's no curb to hit, it's just into the ditch) when all of a sudden CRUNCH! I remember yelling out WHAT? I still couldn't figure out what I could have possibly hit, so I got out, and there was Liane's parents Jimmy. I had assumed her dad had dropped her off, and because there are no street lights in the slums, I hadn't seen it parked in the ditch. Talk about ruining a great day. And it was almost kind of ironic, 'cause a few months ago Liane had backed into my car when I was parked in the ditch at Heinrich's place...although she never hit it hard enough to do any damage. I did. And the problem is I don't speak a whole lot of German. Not sure how I'm going to apologize to her parents, or tell them I'll pay for it. I just feel like such an idiot. And a twenty-something male driver never gets the benefit of the doubt. Liane was very understanding, but I'm sure it'll take a long time to live this one down.
Well, we had a blast at the Dueck's place, although my evening was somewhat tainted by the reality that waited for me back home. Kind of a lousy start to what promises to be an awesome week. Monday night is Dustin's band concert, tuesday night is a Christmas party @ Celebration Night, thursday night we're going carolling, and friday night is the adult dessert banquet @ church. The sooner I can get this behind me (no pun intended :) the better.
Talk to you later,