Blessed in/by the Word

This week I am working with a group from Chris's home church, Our Father Lutheran Church in Centennial, CO. We're out at the Hinojosa compound (again) building one last addition and then connecting everything we've done so far so it's all one cohesive house. It's hot! Yesterday I drank almost 2 gallons of water and/or Gatorade throughout the day and still felt like I didn't have enough energy to sleep when I got home, but today was significantly better. Maybe it was just getting my body conditioned back into construction mode, and it didn't help that I got sunscreen in my eyes so they were watering all day. Anyways, the group's theme for the week is "Blessed in/by the Word." Each day, their devotions revolve around a single word that we are blessed by. Being a language person, I find this extremely cool. For example, Sunday, Pentecost, was "spirit," yesterday was "grace," and today is "faith." There are so many directions a discussion on faith could go, but I wanted to share an experience from today that ties into one aspect of faith.

Hammer, Hanna, and I were assigned the task of building a short wall (45 inches) connecting an addition built in April with the one we're building. Sounds simple, but it definitely wasn't as straightforward as it sounds, or looks in the photo below, for a variety of reasons (trying to frame on the sand instead of a concrete floor, the overhang on the April addition, water pipes running through the studs, odd nailing angles). So this wall wound up taking like 3 hours, but at one point Hammer was struggling with a finicky nail, and Hanna said, "I have faith in you!" Immediately we all realized that she had used the word of the day, in a context meaning "trust" or "confidence." That became a catchphrase as we fought through until the bitter end and finished "our" wall! I'm sure others could have done it faster and probably better, but we all had more fun and came away with far more pride and dignity after battling every element, knowing all along that the other two members of our small but mighty team had faith in us!


Until next time, blessings!

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