I preached my first person sermon on the woman at the well yesterday at Circle of Mercy. It went well. I had written it a couple of weeks ago but I wasn’t happy with it. I practiced it Saturday morning and it hit me what was wrong. I made some changes and it improved greatly. I was still nervous about it but it went pretty well. It was a bit theatrical but it was fun to preach. I hope I wasn’t so into the experience of being the character that I lost track of why I was doing it! I do believe God spoke through me though.

Having a smaller plate now is a real challenge. In a perfect world, this sermon is all I would have on my mind. Unfortunately other things have come up. I’m working on a team with several other folks who are supporting a man who was homeless but now has housing. Others on the team can drive him places which is great since my sense of direction is so challenged. At our last meeting, no one was able to take him to the various food pantries to pick up his food boxes tomorrow so I’m going to do it. I need to remember that he knows where we need to go and all I have to do is drive him to the various places.

On top of that, I’m leading a foot washing for the homeless women who stay at Grace Covenant four times a year for a week. This is going to be a wonderful event and I look forward to it. The problem is these three things have stressed me out. I wish they happened in different weeks but I want to do all three. I hope I haven’t taken on too much!

I will use everything I know about handling my stress. I have not been spending time in contemplative prayer which always helps me. Plus I need to stick to my time schedule and not get too perfectionist about things. I wanted to write more about my challenges around preaching my sermon but I’ll have to do this later. For now, I”ll work on the foot washing service, pray and swim this afternoon. This should help me relax.