Duck Tales

I don’t know if you have ever done anything even a little bit crazy, but let me tell you that I have. The silliest thing is that it was all over something so small. Last Friday, Jimmy and I went to Breadeaux with two of the college couples. Jimmy really loves Breadeaux and he hadn’t had it for quite some time and we wanted to do something special so we thought – Breadeaux it is!

Now if you don’t know, Breadeaux is French style pizza and they specialize in small towns, but we live in Saint Louis. So the nearest Breadeaux is about 45 minutes from our house. SO we all got in the car and took a drive to Milstadt, Illinois, just for pizza. I know crazy! Once we were in town we passed Happy Days Icecream. We figured we had come this far, why not have some dessert. After dinner we stopped to get icecream, and that’s when I saw them…

Cute. Adorable. Tiny. Miniature. Rubber Ducks! Shaina, Shelby, and I instantly fell in love! We each purchased a couple of ducks from the vending machine and gave them cute little nicknames. I got Cow Duck (white with brown spots) and Edward Cullen Duck (Black with White Fangs) that day. They even rode on the dashboard all the way home!

The thing is… When you find something so cute and adorable and you fall in love then you are always going to want more. Therefore, when I discovered another mini-duck vending machine in Bowling Green, Missouri, on my way home from visiting my sister at Hannibal LaGrange College, I knew my duck family needed a few more members. Yeah, I bought three more!

Still this wasn’t the craziest thing that happened! On Sunday, the couples were all sitting around and we were talking about all the fun we had had on Friday and I was showing the girls the new ducks I bought on Saturday and then Shelby decided we should drive to Milstadt again just to buy more ducks! Yep. We got in the car, drove 45 minutes, ate Breadeaux, had icecream, and bought more mini-ducks!

I now have 8 mini-ducks sitting on top of my computer monitor at home. I still think they are cute and adorable, but I can’t believe the extra effort I put into getting the last three ducks. Would I have put that kind of extra effort into other areas of my life? Or do I waste it on things that have no eternal importance? Not to say that it’s not okay to have fun and be crazy and go on wild duck chases, but what I am saying is that I need to make sure that I don’t lose out on things that are more important because I am too busy chasing rubber ducks.

Strawberry Festival

This week at the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home (where I work) things are very hectic. We are in the midst of preparing for one of our three festival fundraisers. Strawberry Festival is on Saturday, June 5th, this year and it is always an all day affair. We have craft venders, a quilt auction, craft auction, food, and campus tours. It is fun but completely and utterly exhausting!
Strawberry Festival is the oldest of the three festivals MBCH holds each year. When it first started 120 years ago, it was the main source of income for the Baptist Orphans Home (now MBCH). It all started when the orphans grew, harvested, and sold their own strawberries in order to keep the home open. Over the years it has changed and evolved. However, in the last 25 years the festival has changed very little. It has stopped adapting to current trends and is stuck in the rut of tradition. As a result, the festivals have become less and less effective in their post of providing major funding for the operation of MBCH. In fact, there were no major changes allowed until last year. I just wonder if it’s too little to late.
Sadly, many of us have a “festival” mentality. As baby Christians we established a pattern of provision for our walk with Christ. We knew what we needed to reach our spiritual goals and we worked hard to meet those goals. As we continued to grow, we would change and adapt our strategy to keep things current and effective. However, just like the festival, many of us get comfortable and stop keeping tabs on the things we are doing and their effectiveness and we get ourselves into a spiritual rut. While we are in this rut, we do the minimum to keep our Christian walk afloat but we never really are as good as we could be. Eventually we will tank if we don’t get out of this rut. Will we learn to grow and change again or will it be to little to late? I guess we will just have to wait and see.
Get out of your rut and start reaching your potential!