Minutes to Memories

It was such a nice morning at church. Not many people made fun of my bald head where I could hear them. My mom was here. The sermon went well, and not that this is connected, there were several responses (as opposed to the normal, zero). Then, we had a combined class where every class reported on the various outreach projects done this past quarter (this had been a brainchild of mine, and contrary to that fact, it seemed to go very well).

Then, this afternoon, I realized I am an utter and complete moron, and I feel like a total heel.

As I mentioned earlier, we normally have somewhere around zero responses during our version of an altar call, reflecting I'm sure on the quality of the preaching. In spite of that fact, I still say a prayer after response time each week about whatever seems to be pressing. Today, before the invitation song, I had tasked myself to remember two separate situations we needed to pray about. And then Shawn came forward. And then Audrey. And then Pamela. And then Marion. And then, just as the song was finishing, came Kathryn. Shawn & Pamela stayed on the front row, but Audrey, Marion, and Kathryn returned to their seats after sharing thoughts with me (this is important for later).

I didn't write any of this down, as I bounced like a preacher pinball back and forth between all the responses (this is important information for my mounting guilt).

So I try to group all this stuff together into handy mental categories for my prayer. There were several health-related prayers - both Pat & the Kirby family that I had planned on praying for before, and Shawn's stepdad, and half of Audrey's prayer card. Then, there were family-related requests from Pamela, Kathryn, and the other half of Audrey's card.

And so I prayed.

And then I sat down.

And no one threw anything at me.

It was this afternoon that it dawned on me that I had not prayed for Marion! Marion is one of my great friends, and he is considering entering professional ministry after getting out of the Coast Guard. He responded this morning, emotional in his growing belief that this is something to pursue, and then I totally snubbed him in my prayer! I feel so bad - I can't even begin to tell you...

I called Marion, and he was so gracious to me. I'm not sure why, considering my completely irresponsible performance this morning. But he was gracious nonetheless.

I mentioned this to my wife & one of my elders separately this evening. Both said that they assumed that Marion had told me something private that he didn't want to be mentioned aloud. I appreciate their confidence in me. Too bad they didn't appreciate my idiocy.

I told Marion that I only take one little bit of solace in all this. Someday, when he's preaching somewhere, because of the nature of the job, he will do something somewhat equally boneheaded. At least he'll have a story to tell on himself, then...

:-(